Theokratie

Exegetische und wirkungsgeschichtliche Ansätze

Peter Juhás, Róbert Lapko, Reinhard Müller

• Verlag: De Gruyter
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110686036
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Theologie & Religion
• Thema: Religionsgeschichte

Der Sammelband erhellt verschiedene Aspekte von Theokratie und zeichnet ein komplexes Bild des religions- und sozialgeschichtlichen Phänomens, das hinter dem Begriff steht. Das Problemfeld wird anhand jüdisch-christlicher Quellen bearbeitet. Der Band ist als Sammlung von spezialisierten Studien zu zentralen Topoi biblischer Texte angelegt, die mit theokratischen Konzepten zusammenhängen.

Die Beiträge gelten einzelnen Büchern oder kleineren Texteinheiten des Alten und Neuen Testaments, die für das Thema einschlägig sind, sowie exemplarischen Zusammenhängen aus der Umwelt des Alten und Neuen Testaments. Die Leitfragen, die den Untersuchungen zugrunde liegen, betreffen die Rolle der anderen Götter, des Königs, des Priesters und des Messias sowie ihr Verhältnis zueinander und zu Gott in verschiedenen Vorstellungen über die "Gottesherrschaft".

Die Beiträge bieten somit exemplarische Grundlagen, um die spätere Rezeption der theokratisch relevanten Texte kritisch zu bearbeiten. In wirkungsgeschichtlicher Perspektive gilt ein besonderes Interesse theokratischen Aspekten bei russischen religionsphilosophischen Denkern des 19. Jahrhunderts.

Altes und Neues Testament

Israel, the People of God, as Theocracy

Christoph Levin

1 The Origins of the Term

The fact that the term “theocracy” is used to denote the political and/or religious system associated with this word is due to the Old Testament. The first to coin this word was Flavius Josephus in his apologist work Contra Apionem, in which he was attempting to make his Roman readers understand the peculiarity of Judaism as an ethnic as well as a religious community:

There is endless variety in the details of the customs and laws which prevail in the world at large. To give but a summary enumeration: some peoples have entrusted the supreme political power to monarchies, others to oligarchies, yet others to the masses. Our lawgiver, however, was attracted by none of these forms of polity, but gave to his constitution the form of what – if a forced expression be permitted – may be termed a “theocracy” placing all sovereignty and authority in the hands of God.¹

This sketch is based directly on the picture the Bible paints of Moses. Josephus, who was far away from modern criticism of the Bible, took it as an accurate historical description and translated it into concepts familiar to his readers. He presented Moses as a political “lawgiver”, who could thus stand beside the lawgivers of the Greeks. As the world’s first lawgiver, he could even be thought of as their predecessor. As was always the case in Antiquity, this view of history was not only intended to make sense of early history, but also of the present. With the concept of theocracy, Josephus was hence attempting to capture the specific quality of Judaism and to make it intelligible in the context of the Roman world.

Josephus’ Mosaic concept, as it were, differed significantly from the way in which another Jewish group understood the kingdom of God (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ): Following the tradition of prophetic eschatology, which was at least as important in Judaism at this time as the temple cult administered by the priests, Jesus of Nazareth and his teacher John the Baptist had awaited the impending arrival of the kingdom of God. Even though he was executed as a false Messiah, as “King of the Jews” (Matt 27:37 par.), Jesus had rejected an institutional setting for this idea, at least regarding its political implementation in the here and now. His disciples later purported that he had said:

My kingdom is not from this world.

(John 18:36)²

While other branches of Judaism wore themselves out by rebelling against the Romans, the Christians awaited the parousia. And once Christianity was made one of the pillars of the Roman Empire by the Emperors in the 4^th century, ultimately becoming its official religion, the concept of theocracy lost its political meaning altogether. The tensions between Regnum and Sacerdotium that dominated the Middle Ages were to never make use of the term.

This changed after the end of the Middle Ages, when various radical strands of the Reformation called the coexistence of Regnum and Sacerdotium into question and declared their – usually quite local – area the “Kingdom of God”. It goes without saying that all these attempts failed very quickly when they could not retreat to a secluded space of their own, as in some parts of the New World.

The term “theocracy” began to play a more significant role only with Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico politicus of 1670.³ It is surely no coincidence that a Jewish philosopher, whose work was in large parts devoted to historical criticism of the Bible, would be the one to revive it, especially since he derived fundamental consequences for the politics of his day from his study of the Bible. Once again, theocracy is to Spinoza not one constitutional form among many, but the constitution of Mosaic Judaism and is emblematic of the central role of Moses, especially in the Sinai Pericope:

They took the advice of Moses, in whom they all had the greatest confidence, and decided to transfer their right to no mortal man, but to God alone; and without long delay they all promised equally, with one voice, to obey all God’s commands implicitly, and to recognize as law only what he should declare to be such by prophetic revelation.⁴

The result was that religion and politics became one and the same.

The sovereignty of the Jews, then, was held by God alone; and it was the covenant alone which justified them in calling their state God’s kingdom and God their king, and hence in calling the enemies of their state the enemies of God, citizens who aimed at usurping the sovereignty traitors to God, and, finally, their civil laws the laws and commandments of God. Thus in this state civil law and religion, which, as I have shown, lies wholly in obedience to God, were one and the same thing; […] In short, there was no distinction at all between civil law and religion. This was why their state could be called a theocracy – because its citizens were only bound by laws revealed by God.⁵

In practice, however, abandoning legal bonds in favour of the spontaneously uttered will of God could hardly work. Spinoza is quick to point out this tension between religious theory and political practice:

Yet all this was based on belief rather than fact; for in fact the Jews retained their sovereignty completely, as will be clear from the manner and method in which their state was governed.⁶

Strictly speaking, the theocracy presupposes that every individual is directly beholden only to God. The Israelites, however, relinquished this right already at the Sinai. In arguing this, Spinoza points to Exod 20:18–20: “When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” This is repeated on occasion of the revelation of the Decalogue in Deut 5, where the original reading in V. 4: “Yahweh spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the fire,” was later supplemented by V. 5: “At that time I was standing between Yahweh and you, to declare to you the words of Yahweh; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.” Again in Deut 5:22–27 the Israelites transfer their right to unmediated contact with their deity onto Moses: “Go near, you yourself, and hear all that Yahweh our God will say. Then tell us everything that Yahweh our God tells you, and we will listen and do it” (V. 27). Spinoza summarizes:

By these words they obviously abolished the original covenant, transferring their right to consult God and to interpret his decrees to Moses without reserve.⁷

Relinquishing their sovereignty in this way could have led directly into a dictatorship:

For as soon as the Jews transferred their right to consult God to Moses, and promised unreservedly to regard him as the divine mouthpiece, they lost all their right completely, and had to accept any successor chosen by Moses as chosen by God.⁸

This did not happen, however, since Moses chose not...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abkürzungen
• Nachbarkulturen der Bibel
• Altes und Neues Testament
• Wirkungsgeschichte biblischer Texte
• Bibelstellen