Israel and Humanity - The Revelation and the Gentiles
IV.
Revelation and the Gentiles.[1]
If the doctors say that God spoke at Sinai all known languages and especially if they insist on the most important of these is evidently because in their view, divine revelation addressed to other peoples as well as Israel, otherwise the rabbinic assertion makes no sense. But here is even more remarkable: they even suggest that before the Law to Israel, the Lord gave to all other nations of the earth who do not wish to accept [2].
This idea is in the Talmud as the Pesikta and there is little Midrash which in one way or another, do not recur. There are even home to a rabbi about this significant sentence: "Because the Holy One, blessed be he, does not tyrannical with his creatures. "Psalm [3] If the text does not mention the blessing mosaic with Sinai as Seir and Paran, these two names are enough for commentators to refer to all mankind, for they represent to them the two great powers vying for their time domination of their country, the East and West, Arabs and Romans. The Pesikta also relies on this passage from Psalms: "All the kings of the earth praise you, O Lord, for they heard the words of thy mouth. [4] They celebrated the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great [5] ".
The offer God's Law to its Gentiles, just appearing on the Sinai, has a dramatic beauty that enhances the value of philosophy and history of the idea, however rabbinique.Veut we see it as a more rational form? Let us read these memorable words: "Know and learn that since the day God created the world until Israel left Egypt, God went in turn to all the nations of world to offer them his law, but they did not want to accept. Also in each generation, witnesses attest to rise, it is Eliphaz of Teman, Bildad Shuhite, Zophar of Naama Job of the land of Uz and last of all, Balaam son of Beor [6]. Thus, what has been presented elsewhere as an incident scene Sinai is developing here in the entire previous history of Moses. Let all nations that successively the Act has been proposed and they refused. But what is special about this haggada is this detail that witnesses to the divine impartiality arose at all times among the Gentiles in the person of their prophets nice same. Here we find a striking analogy with the famous words of Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles saying that thinkers and philosophers in all ages God has created among them to remind them of God's truth, will one day their sentences. [7] This design the economy of Revelation, can not have been borrowed at the bottom of Judaism and the words of Paul as well as the text of the Midrash testify prevailing universalist beliefs in that environment where self-righteous Saul of Tarsus had drawn his inspirations .
