"The one distinguishing feature of the state that eventually emerged as 'Israel' seems to have been its concept of statehood. Under the old regime of Canaan, political power had always gone hand in hand with possession of a city, which in turn meant that real power always resided in the hands of just a few privileged people. But the kind of state that developed under the influence of the covenant from Mount Sanai was underwritten by a different understanding of human society, in which class structure had no part to play. For a nation whose corporate identity was forged out of the story of a group of people who had been slaves, it was difficult to justify any one individual claiming a position of personal superiority, for in the beginning they had all been nobodies, and the only thing that made them a nation was the undeserved generosity of God. Israelite national identity was always firmly based on their understanding of the nature of God, and this was to have far-reaching consequences not only during the formative period of their history, but also throughout their entire existence as a nation. It meant that all elements of their population were of equal importance, and their ultimate responsibility was not to some centralized power structure, but to God alone."
John Drane, Introducing the Bible, p. 66
No comments:
Post a Comment