Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Propheten (Hosea, Jeremia, Jesaia): Grundklage 1; Ontologie der Propheten

Kurzinhalt: God-given faculties of mind and body - the people, however, no more lived in the tension of temporal and spiritual order; comparable to the Platonic vision of the Agathon; the prophets' ontology

Textausschnitt: 33/13 The deviousness of the Jeremiah texts thus veils the insight that Israel's defections had something to do with the construction of the theopolity as an embodiment of the Kingdom of God in a concrete people with its institutions, and that they would cease only with the theopolity under the Covenant itself. In the history of prophetism from the eighth century to the fall of Jerusalem we must distinguish, therefore, between (1) the prophets' complaints about Israel's misconduct and (2) the varying degree of their awareness that admonitions were not only hopeless, but perhaps even pointless. We shall first deal with the complaints. (442; Fs)

34/13 The complaints, though variegated in form, were remarkably constant with regard to substance. Every prophet from Amos and Hosea to Jeremiah recognized the symptoms of the trouble. That substance we find most clearly expressed in Hosea's plain indictment (8:4): (442; Fs)
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The kings and gods of the people, thus, were the representative symptoms of Israel's fall.
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... we may say, the people could well have answered that the prophets had no respect for the beauty of God's creation, that they did not permit man to unfold his God-given faculties of mind and body, and that they could not distinguish between pride and joy of life. And the countercharges would have been justified indeed-if the people had been able to articulate such charges at all. The people, however, no more lived in the tension of temporal and spiritual order () And the prophets' attempt to clarify the meaning of the Sinaitic revelation was therefore as right in rejecting the mythical form of the people's order as it was wrong in rejecting the order of mundane existence together with the mythical form. (444; Fs) (notabene)
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41/13 The juxtapositions of rejection and demand make it clear that the prophets wanted to overcome the externalization of existence; and the texts reveal the remarkable degree of success their efforts achieved: They disengaged the existential issue from the theopolitical merger of divine and human order; they recognized the formation of the soul through knowledge (Hosea) and fear (Isaiah) of God; and they developed a language to articulate their discoveries. They were handicapped, to be sure, by their inability to break through to philosophy, but the part of their work we are examining at present runs parallel, without a doubt, to the discovery of the aretai in Helles. Nevertheless, the rejections of the mundane order remain as an oddity. The prophets apparently were not only unable to see, but not even interested in finding, a way from the formation of the soul to institutions and customs they could consider compatible with the knowledge and fear of God. The attitude of the prophets is tantalizing in that it seems to violate common sense. (446f; Fs) (notabene)
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45/13 The analysis of the passages by Gerhard von Rad has shown that Isaiah resumed the traditions of the war ritual, long dormant in his time, and transformed them strangely. He cast himself in the role of the nabi, of the time of Judges and the early Kingdom, who sanctioned the Holy War. These wars of the Confederacy, we recall, were defensiv. Since they were conducted for the Chosen People, on principle, by Yahweh himself, trust in Yahweh and his help was a condition of membership in the fighting forces. Moreover, victory was achieved by the numinous terror cast by Yahweh into the ranks of the enemy. Now as long as this confidence was coupled with the people's fierce lust to fight, everything went as well as the fortunes of war would permit. (448; Fs)
46/13 When, however, as we anticipated, confidence assumed the form of a prophetic demand to remain passive, to sit still and let Yahweh do the fighting, and to rely on the numinous panic to discomfit the enemy, difficulties had to arise from the conflict between the demand and the exigencies of mundane existence. That conflict became real in the case of Isaiah. The prophet demanded the "House of David," i.e., the King and his court, not to trust in the army or the Egyptian auxiliaries, but to "consult Yahweh," i.e., Isaiah. And what he offered as advice was trust in the roach of Yahweh that lived in him. (448f; Fs) (notabene)