Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Berith (Bund), Konstitution Israels; Sinai - eg: Auferstehung; die drei Abschnitte vom Bundesschluss (essen trinken)

Kurzinhalt: constitution of Israel as the people under God through the Berith

Textausschnitt: 72/12 The last act of the drama is the constitution of Israel as the people under God through the Berith. The problems of literary stratification in this part of the narrative resemble those of the thornbush episode,
()
73/12 The whole action of the Covenant, thus, is clearly organized on this level of the narrative as, first, the revelation of the meaning of the Berith and its acceptance by the people; second, the cultic act of the Berith; and third, the proclamation of the rules which constitute the people as a theopolity. (419; Fs)
()
... today a matter of controversy whether the Berith was concluded on the basis of the Decalogue, or whether the Decalogue was issued on the basis of the Berith.
()
76/12 With regard to historical reliability and date of the drama, one cannot go beyond probabilities. After the spiritual biography of Moses in Exodus 2, and the thornbush episode, we encounter now for the third time a brilliant author of the "middle stratum." We do not know who he was or whether the three pieces were written by one or more persons. We can only say that the authors must have been men of great spiritual sensitiveness, who were able to capture in paradigmatic dramas the essence of Moses' person and work. From the anaylsis of the component sources we know, furthermore, that they used the J and E materials, or - more cautiously - the traditions which also found their way into the work of the J and E historians. About the tradition of the meaning which the unknown authors superimposed on the materials, however, we know nothing. And with regard to historical reliability we can say only that on the one hand, the dramas of the "middle stratum" contain nothing that would be historically impossible while on the other hand, they let emerge a Moses of convincing stature. (421; Fs)
77/12 We shall now deal with the three scenes of the Berith drama in their sequence.
()
82/12 That was all. And the paucity of information should cause no surprise, for the establishment of order in the present under God is an event not in literature but in the souls of men. "And they beheld God, and ate and drank" is the perfect formula for an event in which divine order becomes established in history, while externally happens nothing at all. (423f; Fs)