Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: Israel and Revelation

Titel: Israel and Revelation

Stichwort: Jeremia: Problem der Argumentation (goldener Tempel)

Kurzinhalt: not that Yahweh was the true God because of somebody's discovery that images of gods; the true reasons of defection: Vorzug -> devine force in the world to the transcendent God

Textausschnitt: 30/13 The argument, to be sure, is not insincere, but it certainly is devious. Jeremiah knew, of course, that the alien gods were false gods because Yahweh had revealed himself as the true God, and not that Yahweh was the true God because of somebody's discovery that images of gods were no more than pieces of woodwork; and he knew, furthermore, quite well that the carving of a god was prohibited precisely because it was not as innocuous an action as carpentering a piece of furniture. Moreover, as early as the eighth century, Hosea had said of the Bull of Samaria (8:6): (441; Fs)
A workman made it;
and it is not God.
Hence, by the time of Jeremiah the argument must have been a prophetic staple that impressed nobody, because it was too obviously wrong. More than once must he have heard the answer to his expostulations which he puts himself in the mouth of the people (2:25):

31/13 The true reasons of defection did not escape Jeremiah: The people went after alien gods, there could be no doubt, because it loved them; it preferred the manifestations of divine force within the world to the world-transcendent, invisible God. With grief he noted the unheard-of spectacle of a nation abandoning its gods (2:11-12): (441; Fs)