Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: toldoth; Genealogie: Spannung zw. Menschheit - heiligem Rest; Chronik; Adam, Sem

Kurzinhalt: Die Menschheit blieb gebunden an die hl. "Linie" - der hl. Rest an die Rückkehrer aus dem Exil, die das "Landvolk" nicht als legitime Nachfoler sahen

Textausschnitt: Mankind is conceived as a clan, deriving its community bond from a common ancestor. History, under this aspect, becomes an account of the generations (toldoth) of man descending from Adam, down to the time of the writer. The idea, with some of its connotations, can be discerned in the opening of Chronicles.
()
The register of Chronicles illuminates the various uses to which the genealogies can be put, as well as the tension that must develop between the clan idea and the idea of mankind. The symbol of the toldoth applies to the whole course of Israelite history. As the phases of application can be distinguished, in chronological order:
()
the main purpose of guaranteeing the purity of the "holy seed." For the register is rigidly constructed on the principle of separating the main line of mankind from the side lines. A series of names on the main line is enumerated until a point is reached where the heads of side lines appear; at this point the main line is interrupted, the side lines are disposed of, and then the enumeration returns to the main line. The descendants of Adam, for instance, are enumerated down to Shem, Ham, and Japheth; then the descendants of Japheth and Ham, as well as the side lines of Shem are disposed of; and then the register returns to the enumeration of the main line from Shem to Abraham; and so forth. The procedure of recapturing the main line again and again from the mass of lesser mankind is an impressive prelude to the recapturing that is now in the offing when the men who returned from the Exile will separate as the "remnant," as the "children of captivity" (Ezra 8:35), from the "adversaries," the "people of the land" (amha-aretz, Ezra 4:1-4), that is, from the Israelites who had remained in the country when the others were carried off into captivity. (166f; Fs)
39/6 Up to this point the analysis renders the following result. The historiographic symbol of the toldoth had for its basis the genealogies of the clans united in the Israelite Confederacy. The genealogy, then, became the symbol for expressing the unity of groups which by their substance were no clans at all. The dominant experience in the creation of such groups was the Covenant at Mount Sinai, which constituted something like an amphictyonic league of formerly separate clans, under the name of Israel. The community originating in the Covenant was, then, submitted to genealogical work; and as a consequence the original clans, as well as others which joined them at a later time, as for instance Judah, were constructed as tribes descending from a common ancestor Jacob-Israel. The Covenant, however, was a divine revelation of true order valid for all mankind, made to a particular group at a particular time. Hence, there could be, and historically there was, differentiated from it both the idea of a mankind under one God and the idea of a nucleus of true believers. Again both ideas were submitted to genealogical work. The idea of mankind was cast in the form of a genealogy going back to Adam; the nucleus of the true believers became a "remnant" that kept a genealogical record of the "holy seed." In both instances the genealogical work was more than an innocuous formality. The idea of mankind could never be understood in its fullness, in spite of the arduous endeavors of the prophets, because through the genealogical form it remained closely linked to the idea of a genealogically separated sacred line. And the idea of a nucleus of true believers rendered, under the genealogical influence, the grotesque result of the postexilic synoecism: That a numerically small group of exiles returned to Jerusalem and excommunicated the am-ha-aretz, that is, the people of Israel settled in its promised land. The people of Israel had to wait for its historical revenge until from the am-ha-aretz there arose Jesus and Christianity. (167; Fs) (notabene)