[First posted December 9, 2014:

Continuing the discussion on world religions, specifically monotheisms that trace their roots to Abrahamic faith, this is from chapter 6 of MUST READ/MUST OWN Who are the REAL Chosen People? – by Reuven Firestone.  The chapter’s title:  Chosenness and Covenant in Rabbinic Literature.  Reformatted and highlighted for this post.—Admin1]

Image from www.threefaithsonegod.com

The claim for continuity

As mentioned previously, rabbinic Judaism represents a new expression of biblical religion, but unlike either Christianity or Islam, it never claimed that status. Its position, rather, was that it was biblical religion , but with some adjustments after the Roman destruction of its Temple in Jerusalem, and therefore, the forced termination of its ancient mode of worshiping God through animal sacrifice. Rather than claim a new dispensation as did Christianity, or a correction of the errors of the old as did Islam, rabbinic Judaism claimed continuity with the original and authentic monotheism represented by Abraham and the biblical patriarchs, Moses at Mount Sinai, David and Solomon, who built up Jerusalem and  established God’s Temple  there, and the great prophets of Israel.

Judaism, therefore, was not static but continued to evolve, and its evolution included the emergence of a body of literature in the Talmud that was so deeply linked with the scripture of the Bible that it developed a scriptural status itself. The emergence of the Talmud took centuries. Its earliest parts date from a century or more before Jesus, and its end-date was in the period shortly before the Arab Muslim conquest of the seventh century. The Talmud is so thoroughly integrated with the Hebrew Bible that the biblical subtext of any passage is usually included as part of the text itself. This can be observed quite clearly in the passages that treat chosenness.

The following section from the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2a-b) is fully caught up in the argument over who best merits God’s love for living out the divine will, and who best merits God’s reward for doing so:

In times to come the Holy One will bring a Torah scroll, embrace it to His chest and say,“Whoever has been occupied with this come forth and receive its reward!“ Immediately, all the idolaters will gather together in confusion, as it is said (Isaiah 43:9), All the nations gathered together. The Holy One will say to hem, “Do not gather before Me in confusion. Let each nation enter separately with its scribes, as it is said (in the continuation of Isaiah 43:9), and let the peoples be gathered together. . . The Holy One will say to [the Romans who come first], “How have you been occupying yourselves?” They will answer, “Lord of the Universe, we have established many marketplaces, we have built many baths, we have accumulated much gold and silver. We did this only [to support the Jews] so that they could devote themselves to the study of Torah.” The Holy One will reply, “You fools! All that you did was only for your own sake. You have established marketplaces to provide whores, baths to revel with them, and as for the silver and gold, it is Mine, as it is written (Hag. 2:8), The silver and the gold are Mine, says the Lord of Hosts.

Then the Persians step forward and make the case for carrying out God’s design by supporting the Jews so that they can live out God’s will. But they, too, are chastised for being selfish and thinking only of themselves. All the nations do likewise and all are invalidated for not personally taking responsibility for engaging in Torah as did the Jews. The nations then argue a different position to God. “But [the Gentiles] will argue, ‘How can You blame us for not carrying out the Torah when we never agreed to accept it?’ The response that follows is, ‘Then why did you not accept it?’”

The passage then goes on to state that the other nations took on the responsibility to observe a much reduced version of the Torah that the Talmud refers to as “the Seven Commandments given to Noah,” but even these they failed to obey. The chosen status of the Jews is thus proven through the invalidation of all other communities.

This is an interesting passage for a number of reasons.

• First, it serves as a consolation to the Jews, who had suffered the destruction of the Temple, dispersion into exile, and insult and mistreatment after the ascendance of Christianity. How could they continue to see themselves as God’s favored people when they are in such straits and their competitors the Christians seem to bask in the light of God after the Christianization of the Roman Empire in the fourth century?
• Christianity is not openly condemned in this passage, but it was dangerous for a despised and powerless minority to criticize the religion of the empire. Rome, therefore, became a code word for “Christianity” in rabbinic literature because the Roman Empire did Christianize.
• It should also be noted that after Christianity became the religion of the empire, Jews had to self-censure their criticism of Christians to protect themselves.

Image from mudpreacher.org

Chosenness as Consolation

Many Talmudic passages that treat Israel’s chosenness are forms of consolation. The following coveys two reassuring messages about the important role of the Jews for the world’s well-being:

• Resh Lakish said, Why is there an additional letter “hey” in It was evening and then morning, the sixth day (Gen. 1:31)? This teaches that the Holy One stipulated with works of Creation by saying to them, “If Israel accepts the Torah, you will exist, but if not I will turn you back into emptiness and formlessness.” (Shabbat 88a)

The first message is to the Jews—

• and it tells them to hold fast to their religion, despite their humiliation,
• for God is willing to keep the world in existence only on account of Israel’s loyalty to God
• through observing the Torah.
• That is to say, Israel is still God’s chosen despite the Jews’ current degradation.

The second message is directed to the entire world, including those who are in superior political and social position to the Jews.  That message asserts that the very existence of those who degrade the Jews is ironically dependent upon the Jews whom they despise.

Of course, that audience is not reading this text anyway, so the message is really directed internally. It provides Jews hope for a day in which God will redeem them from their unhappy state.

It should be noted that rabbinic literature in the Talmud and related literatures is a large collection of tradition. Various positions and opinions are presented in ways that are not intended to be absolutely consistent, so anyone reading through the material will observe differing positions and many issues and variant interpretations of biblical verses.

In one series of biblical interpretations, it is maintained that God loves Israel even more than God loves the divine angels. A rabbinic midrash (exposition) from the eighth century cities many cases from the Bible where the same word refers to Israel and to God’s angels. With poetic symmetry, the work sets out to prove that the ways in which those words are used shows that God loves his chosen people Israel more than his angelic servants: 

Israel is called “servants,” as it is said, For to Me Israel are servants (Lev. 25:55), and the ministering angels are called servants, as it is said, And if He cannot trust His own servants (and casts reproach on his angels) (Job 4:18). How do you know who is more beloved? [God] says, They are my servants whom I freed from the land of Egypt (Lev. 25:55). Israel, you are more beloved to Me than the ministering angels. 

Israel is called “children,” as it is said, You are children of the Lord your God (Deut. 14:1), and the ministering angels are called “children,” as it is said, The children of divined beings came to God (Job 1:6). How do you know who is more beloved? [God] says, Israel is My firstborn son (Exod. 4:22). Israel, you are more beloved to Me than the ministering angels.

Israel is called “kings” …and ministering angels are called “kings” …Israel, you are more honored by Me than the ministering angels.

Israel is called “hosts” and the ministering angels are called “host”…Israel, you are greater to Me than the ministering angels. 

Israel is called “holy” and the ministering angels are called “holy” …Israel, you are more holy to Me than the ministering angels. 

This exegesis sets out to show how God could not possibly have stopped loving Israel. Israel is more beloved to God even than the ministering angels, thus showing God’s love for the Jews as unique and everlasting. This consolation takes on particular meaning as we observe how the positions of Jews and Christians were reversed in the fourth century. Judaism had been favored by the pagan Roman Empire early on, while Christianity was brutally persecuted. Subsequently, both Jews and Christians represented threats to the empire and both were persecuted. But when the empire Christianized, the tables were completely turned. With that change, Christianity represented the establishment religion, after which Judaism was depicted by Christians as a despised religion. 

Rabbi Elazar Ben Azaria … said, You have affirmed this day that the Lord is your God … and the Lord had affirmed this day that you are, as He promised you, His treasured people (Deut. 26:17-18). The Holy One said to Israel, “You have made Me the sole object of your love, as it is written, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One (Deut. 6:4). And I will make you the sole object of love, as it is said, Who is like Your people, Israel, a unique nation on earth (1 Chron. 17:21). (Talmud, Hag. 3a-b)

In the rabbinic model, therefore, despite the profound decline of the Jews with the destruction of the beloved Jerusalem Temple and their persecution by the pagan Roman Empire, their institutionalized discrimination by the Christianized Roman Empire of Byzantium, and the dispersion of Jews throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond, God never rejected His “chosen people.”

The Jews never lost their exceptional status. Although they may continue to suffer, their suffering is a suffering of love (yisurey ahavah) that would end in some unknown future when the true messiah will come to redeem Israel, and through that redemption, redeem the entire world.

[First posted October 19, 2012; reposted on the occasion of the Independence Day of Israel May 12, 2016.

One of the categories in our posts is MUST READ where we highly recommend books in our list of RESOURCES.  As readers must have noticed, there are three names that repeatedly appear on books we feature here:  Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel,  Dr. James D. Tabor, and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.  Here is yet another book by our third-mentioned favorite, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, titled  FUTURE TENSE:  JEWS, JUDAISM AND ISRAEL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, downloadable as an e-book from amazon.com.   Its  CONTENTS has 11 chapters, but we will feature only Chapter 4, excerpts of which we will quote here.  The title:  The Other: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.]

Why the Jews? . . . .  Hate has attached to many groups in the course of history, but none with the persistence of hatred of the Jews for two thousand years.  Besides which there were civilizations in which Jews lived (albeit not in large numbers), notably India and China, and that did not give rise to antisemitism at all.  Surely Indians and Chinese have the same psychology as everyone else, the same tensions, the same resentments.  Overwhelmingly, antisemitism has arisen in societies that either practised or were influenced by Christianity and Islam.

No sooner have we noted this than it becomes obvious why.  Christianity and Islam trace their descent to Abraham, and their religious origins to God’s covenant with him.  But so do Jews.  And Judaism, the religion of biblical Israel, has existed twice as long as Christianity, three times as long as Islam.  So Christianity and Islam faced a theological problem:  what about the Jews?  Somehow it had to be argued that two thousand years ago in the case of Christianity, or in the seventh century for Islam, something changed.  The Abrahamic covenant was no longer with the Jewish people.

In the case of Christianity, it was argued, from Paul and the Church Fathers onward, that since Jews had rejected the Christian messiah, God had rejected them.  He had made a new covenant and chosen a ‘new Israel.’  Islam put it differently.  Abraham was a Muslim.  The religion he taught was a preparation for Islam.  In any case, the succession did not pass through Isaac as the Bible taught, but through Ishmael.  Hence the difference in the sacred scriptures of these two faiths.  Christianity included the Hebrew Bible but reordered its books to tell a story that culminated in the New Testament.  Islam did not include the Hebrew Bible, since it claimed that Jews—in the account of the binding of Isaac, for example—had falsified events.

Generically, theologies of this kind are called supersessionist, meaning that they argue that the old has been superseded, displaced or replaced, by the new.  The result was to deny legitimacy to Jews because they deny legitimacy to Judaism  It might have been valid once, but no longer.  Hence the difficult situation of Jews in Christian or Islamic cultures.  By definition, they were less than fully human.  Since they had rejected the dominant faith, God had rejected them, and they bore the stigma of that rejection.

This had political consequences.  In the map of reality constructed by these faiths, they lacked conceptual space.  They had no natural home.  According to Augustine, Jews were the embodiment of Cain, condemned to be ‘a restless wanderer on earth’ (Gen. 4:12).  In Islam, Jews, like Christians, were at best dhimmi, subject peoples under Islamic rule.  In both faiths Jews had been disinherited.  The promise of the land that God had, seven times, given to Abraham was null and void—in a word, superseded. . . ,

It is important to say that not all Christian theologies are alike, nor were all Christians opposed to the founding of the state of Israel.  Far from it. . . . Neither Christianity nor Islam had anything to do with the racial antisemitism that led to the Holocaust.  To the contrary, Christians were committe to Jewish survival.  Islamic countries gave refuge to Jews fleeing Christian persecution, most notably the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the Spanish Expulsion.  Both faiths recognized some form of kinship with the Jews, and both at times protected Jews from persecution.

My argument in this chapter is not about antisemitism as such, but about the phenomenon that led to the parting of the ways between Judaism on the one hand and Christianity and Islam on the other.

 Christianity and Islam are universal monotheisms.  Judaism is a particularistic monotheism.  It does not claim to be the sole path to salvation.  The righteous of all nations, taught the rabbis, have a share in the world to come.  You do not have to be Jewish to be good, wise or beloved of God.  That is what God taught the prophet Jonah when he expressed dismay that God had forgiven Israel’s enemies, the Assyrians of Nineveh.

The God of Israel is the God of everyone, but the religion of Israel is not the religion of everyone.  Even at the end of days, the prophets did not forsee that the nations of the world would embrace the religion of Israel with its complex code of commands.  They would recognize God  they would come to Jerusalem to pray.  They would beat their swords into ploughshares and wage war no more.  But they would not become Jewish.  Judaism is not a conversionary faith.

Why not?  That is the question.  Christianity and Islam borrowed much from Judaism, but not this.  On the face of it, their approach is more logical. If God is the God of everyone in general, why did he make a covenant with this people—Jacob’s children—in particular?  A universal God must surely lead to a universal truth, a universal faith.  Why does Judaism embody the tension between the universal and the particular, embracing both, denying neither?  We will not understand Judaism or the modern state of Israel until we find an answer to this question, and to locate it we must turn to the Hebrew Bible itself.

From All People to One People

In essence, the Hebrew Bible is the story of a single people, the children of Israel, later called the Jews, and their relationship with God.  Yet the Bible does not begin with this people.  It begins instead with a series of archetypes of humanity as a whole:  Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah and the Flood, Babel and its builders.

Not until chapter 12 do Abraham and Sarah appear on the scene, and from then on the entire narrative shifts its focus, from humanity as a whole to one man, one woman, and their children.  They become an extended family, then a collection of tribes, then a nation and eventually a kingdom.  In some obscure yet unmistakable way—this is the Hebrew Bible’s fundamental theme—they were to become the carriers of a universal message. For the God they believed in was not a tribal deity, a God of this people and not that, this land and not that.  He is the God of all creator of heaven and earth, who in love set his image on all humanity.

The people he chose to carry this message, on the testimony of the Hebrew Bible itself, were not an obvious choice.  They were not large:  

The Lord did not give you his love and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples (Deut. 7:7).  

Nor were they especially pious:

 It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart (Deut. 9:5).  

The impression we gain of the Israelites throughout is of a fractious, often wayward group, a ‘stiff-necked people’.

Yet Moses and the prophets were convinced that the message they carried was not for their people alone.  It had a universal significance.  Moses said that the laws the Israelites had been commanded—

 will show your wisdom and understanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’ (Deut. 4:6).  

Isaiah famously spoke about Israel being a light for the nations, a covenant of the peoples.  Zechariah foresaw a time when—

 Ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, “let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you” (Zech. 8:23).

The idea is present in the first words God spoke to Abraham:  

Through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed—

—a sentiment that appears no less than five times in the book of Genesis.  Israel’s message is a universal one.  Why then one people, not all peoples”  Why this land, not all lands?  Why were Jews not commanded to take their message everywhere and convert everyone to the one true faith?

Anti-Imperialism

. . . . .Universalism in the Hebrew Bible is set at the beginning and end of time.  The beginning is the first eleven chapters of Genesis.  The end is the prophetic vision of peace and harmony, 

when God will be king over all the earth, on that day he will be one and his name one. 

In the meantime, in historical time, life under God is marked by particularity:  the multiplicity of languages, cultures, natures and civilizations.  That is the Jewish narrative.  Why?

Clearly the answer lies in the story of the Tower of Babel, the prelude to the choice of Abraham and the point at which humanity is divided into different language groups.  Babel is the turning point from the universal to the particular.  It is here that the Bible is setting forth a fundamental proposition, but what is it?  What was wrong with the project of Babel?

. . . . . The story of Babel is, of course, set against the historical backdrop of the Babylonian ziggurats, man-made artificial mountains where, it was believed, heaven and earth touched.  This is the area from which Abraham’s family came and which they were commanded to leave.  The biblical critique of Babylon becomes clearer in light of the book of Exodus, set centuries later, this time in Egypt.  What was common to these two ancient civilizations, the Mesopotamian city-states and Egypt of the Pharaohs, was their monumental architecture—in both cases, physical symbols of concentrated power.  The ziggurats, pyramids and temples of the ancient world were built at the cost of turning most of their population into slaves.

We begin to see an immense idea slowly taking shape.  Judaism was born in two journeys, Abraham’s from Mesopotamia, Moses’ and the Israelites from Egypt.  What is unusual about both journeys is their direction.  At most times, in most places, migration is from poor countries to rich ones, from weak nations to strong ones.  The two founding Jewish journeys were in the opposite direction, from advanced urban civilizations to a land of small towns, nomadic shepherds and agricultural settlements.  This remains the utopian prophetic dream.  Micah envisions a future in which—

 Every man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid (Mic. 4:4).

Judaism is a critique of empire and the rule of the strong.

 In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that every human being is in the image and likeness of God.  This is not an abstract metaphysical proposition.  It is a political statement of potentially explosive force.  The kings and pharaohs of the ancient world were seen as gods, the children of the gods, or the sole intermediary of the gods.  They presided over hierarchical societies in which there was an absolute, ontological difference between rulers and ruled.

By stating that not just the king but everyone is in the image of God, the Bible was opposing the entire political universe of the ancient world.  Every individual is sacrosanct.  Every life is sacred.  The human person as such has inalienable dignity.  Every life is sacred.  The human person as such has inalienable dignity.  Here is the birth of the biblical revolution, which did not materialize in the West until the seventeenth century with the articulation of the concept of human rights, meaning the rights we bear simply because we are human.  Babel is the symbol of the sacrifice of the individual to the state.  Abraham, by contrast, is to become the symbol of all individuals in search of worth as individuals.  The Hebrew Bible is a sustained protest against empire, ruling elites and the enslavement of the masses.  But what has this to do with particularity?

A Mishnah in the tractate of Sanhedrin makes the famous statement—included in Steven Spielberg’s film about the holocaust, Schindler’s List—that ‘One life is like a universe.  Save a life and you save a universe; destroy a life and you destroy a universe.’  It goes on to say, ‘When a human being makes many coins in the same mint, they all come out the same.  God makes everyone in the same image—His image—and they all come out different.’  In this teaching, I eventually realized, the rabbis had decoded the story of Babel and the biblical narrative as a whole

The fundamental difference between human sovereignty and divine sovereignty—the rule of humankind and the rule of God—is that humans impose uniformity; God makes space for difference.  It is the nature of totalitarianisms like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to allow only one image—the Aryan race, the proletariat—to prevail.  All those who fail to fit that image forfeit their rights and, often, their lives.  The Tower of Babel and Egypt of the Pharaohs are symbols of the negation of the principles in which Judaism vests its faith: the dignity of the individual, the sanctity of life, the rule of justice over the powerful and powerless alike, the compassionate society and law-governed liberty.

Its key is diversity.  We are all in God’s image, and we are all different.  Another great nineteenth-century thinker, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, saw this idea already foreshadowed in the symbol of the covenant God made with humanity after the Flood, namely the rainbow.  Hirsch suggests that it represents the white light of God’s radiance refracted into the indefinite shadings of the spectrum.  For Hirsch and Berlin, the division of humanity into many languages and cultures is the necessary precondition of human freedom and dignity until the end of days.

[S6K:  There is so much more just in this chapter and on this topic that continues . . . there is enough in these excerpts for you to chew on so if your interest has been stimulated enough to get your copy of Chief Rabbi’s book, please do so, like all the other books we have recommended, this is worth the purchase!]

[First posted December 9, 2014.

The end of the world . . . the end of the age . . .the end of days . . . each of the three monotheistic world religions has a belief system about what to expect.  This post tackles that in connection with the issues of redemption and election, as explained in our MUST READ/MUST OWN resource: Who are the REAL Chosen People? – by Reuven Firestone. Reformating and highlights added.—Admin1]

Image from www.slideshare.net

Does Redemption require Election? 

The word redemption comes from the Latin redemptionem, meaning “a buying back, releasing, ransoming.” It means, literally, liberation by payment of a price or ransom. Just as one can redeem a debt by paying it off or redeem a slave by buying his or her freedom, religious meaning of redemption has a sense of ransoming from the inevitable bondage that results from sin.

This is not a neutral definition; it is a Christian definition.

Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists also have notions of redemption in their religious traditions and literatures, but their versions do not work out exactly the same way as the classical Christian perspective, for reasons that we will examine below.

English speakers sometimes have difficulty understanding these kinds of religious differences because the English language has become Christianized over the centuries during which Christianity has become literally or virtually the national religion of English speakers. Because we formulate our complex thinking in language, the nature of the language we speak tends to influence our way of thinking and perceiving the world around us.

You may have associates and friends fluent in English whose native tongues are Chinese or Japanese or Hindi, and you may find an occasional slight miscommunication. Yet they are fluent in English. The reason may be, simply, that the two languages’ subtle meanings for key terms or concepts are different enough to cause a “disconnect” in language. It may not be big enough to even notice explicitly, but in some cases may cause some real consternation or even a barrier for deep friendship.

As I indicated at the very beginning of this book, I find Webster’s 1828 Dictionary of the English Language particularly interesting because its American definitions are often so unabashedly Christian and its examples drawn from biblical sources. For a definition of redemption, Webster writes,

“The purchase of God’s favor by the death and sufferings of Christ; the ransom or deliverance of sinners from  the bondage of sin and the penalties of God’s violated law by the atonement of Christ. ‘In whom we have redemption through his blood’ Eph. 1:7.”

The full passage of the King James Version of the Bible from which Webster quotes is, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence” (Eph. 1:7-8).

The more contemporary Oxford Study Bible translation reads,

“In Christ our release is secured and our sins forgiven through the shedding of his blood. In the richness of his grace, God has lavished on us all wisdom and insight”.

Webster’s Dictionary does not define the meaning of redemption in either Judaism or Islam. 

Redemption has an English parallel in the word salvation, which also comes from the Latin.  Salvationem is a noun of action deriving from salvare, “to save.”

Our English word comes from the church Latin translation of the Greek, soteria, related to the Greek word soter, meaning “savior.”  Based on this word is an English term that is used to describe theologies of salvation: soteriology.

As in the definition of redemption, Webster’s definition of salvation has a strong Christian influence and does not define the meaning in Judaism or Islam:

“The redemption of man from the bondage of sin and liability to eternal death, and the conferring on him everlasting happiness. This is the great salvation.” 

————————————–

The Hebrew Bible: God as Redeemer 

Words that convey something like the English redemption and salvation also occur in biblical Hebrew, though the sense of saving from death or from sin is not operative there because the Christian notion of original sin is not found there directly.

A Hebrew term that is usually translated into English as “salvation” is the word yeshu’a, but that word describes the deliverance of the Israelites from the Egyptians (Exod. 14:13) and of deliverance generally from evil or danger.

Two words for redemption are used in the Hebrew Bible, constructed from the verbs podeh and go’el. As in the origin of the Latin parallels, their meanings are derived from ordinary human affairs. Podeh refers to paying for something to be released from the possession of one person and secured in the possession of another. It is a simple transaction in which ownership is transferred from one party to another. The person who carries out the transaction is called the podeh. Anyone can be a podeh.

The same word takes on ritual significance because of the rule in the Bible that all the firstborn, whether animal or human, belong to God. Some of these firstborn can be redeemed with a payment, and all firstborn humans (who in theory belong to God) must be redeemed as well (Exod. 13:1-2; Num. 18:15).

To this day there is a a ritual ceremony among some Jews based on this requirement called pidyon haben or “redemption of the [firstborn] son.” The ritual takes place on the thirty-first day after birth, based on Numbers 15:16, and it is a simple one during which certain blessings are recited and five silver dollars (or other currency) are given to a Cohen, a male whose lineage derives from ancient priestly families.

The word go’el is similar, but is used in the Bible in the context of kinship responsibility. The go’el is the male next of kin who takes special responsibility in the clan to protect clan property, support widows or orphans, and redeem family members who have been reduced to slavery through poverty.

“If your kinsman is in straits and has to sell part of his holdings, his nearest [relative acting as] redeemer (go’el) shall come and redeem what his kinsman has sold” (Lev. 24:25).

In the Bible God is both podeh and go’el. The classic case of God as podeh is the divine redemption of the Israelite from the slavery of Egypt.

“Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you” (Deut. 15:15).

But God also delivers individuals from worldly adversity, as in 2 Samuel 4:9 and 2 Kings 1:29, where David acknowledges God’s role in redeeming him from all his adversities. 

The other word, go’el, is common in the biblical prophetic writings and Psalms to convey the intimate relationship between God and his people. The word conveys the sense of family, almost as if God and Israel are together in the same family and God is the loving and responsible head of the tribe.

The prophet Isaiah recites the following words of God within his prophecies of comfort,

“Fear not, O [little] worm Jacob, O men of Israel, I will help you, declares the Lord, your Redeemer (go’el), the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 41:14).

“Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, their Redeemer (go’el), the Lord of Hosts, I am the first and I am the last, and there is no god but Me” (Isa. 44:4).

God is the redeemer of the orphan (Prov. 23:10-11) and of the persecuted (Job 23:25).

We need to keep in mind in our consideration of the Hebrew Bible that the notions of life after death or eternal salvation were not operative in ancient Israel, aside from the very end of the period represented by the end of the book of Daniel.

We have noted above that in Hebrew scripture God rewards and punishes on this earth rather than in a future world. The teachings about divine reward and punishment are articulated in group terms.

Our modern insistence on the rights and needs of the individual, sometimes even at the expense of the community, is not shared exactly in the Bible. It is true that individuals must be judged by the community for their own personal behaviors (Deut. 24:16), but the welfare of the community as a whole is determined in cosmic terms by its group behavior. Individual behaviors are judged by God as they are represented by the actions and conduct of the community as a whole. This requires that the individual take personal responsibility for the behavior of the group. The result is that the community of Israel as a whole is rewarded or punished.

This system is commendable ethically because it requires that individuals take full responsibility for the behaviors of the group. The problem with the system is that is seems impossible for the community as a whole to ever avoid divine retribution. No matter how much we try to behave ethically as a community, there will always be some individuals who will torpedo our best efforts.

Israel, therefore, often found itself punished with plague or conquest by foreign peoples, dispersed among the nations, downtrodden and unhappy. This unfortunate situation was considered to be God’s will, of course. It was also considered to be cleansing and purifying. The result was that a theology emerged in the Hebrew Bible teaching that a righteous remnant of the nation of Israel that remained true to the aspirations of monotheism would be redeemed, and along with it, the remainder of the world. 

Biblical notions of redemption, therefore, are for a future time on earth —

• when life will be happy and peaceful for the community:
• hunger will no longer exist,
• bloodshed within the community will end,
• and wars with other communities will cease.
• It is a time when everyone will “sit under their own vine and fig tree, with nothing to fear” (Mic. 4:4),
• and it will happen in this world rather than in any world to come.

There are many references to this future redemption, but the classic passage referring to such a future is Isaiah 65:17-25:

For behold! I am creating a new heaven and new earth. The former things shall not be remembered. They shall never come to mind. Be glad, then, and rejoice forever in what I am creating, for I shall create Jerusalem as a joy, and her people as a delight. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and delight in her people. Never again shall be heard there the sounds of weeping and wailing. No more shall there be an infant or graybeard who does not live out his days. He who dies at a hundred years shall be reckoned a youth, and he who fails to reach a hundred shall be reckoned a youth, and he who fails to reach a hundred shall be reckoned accursed. They shall build houses and dwell in them. They shall plant vineyards and enjoy their fruit. They shall not build for others to dwell in, or plan for others to enjoy. For the days of My people shall be as long as the days of a tree, My chosen ones shall outlive the work of their hands. They shall not toil without purpose; they shall not bear children for terror, but they shall be a people blessed by the Lord and their offspring shall remain with them. Before they pray, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will respond. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and the serpent’s food shall be earth. In all My sacred mount nothing evil or vile shall be done.

This moving aspiration for a future earthly redemption is articulated first and foremost in terms of the nation of Israel. This should not be surprising, given the national nature of religion in the ancient Near East and the fact that only Israel was monotheistic at that time.

The future is articulated in reference to the past, so in the Hebrew Bible there is great aspiration for a time in which God will bring a final and great redemption for Israel,  just as God redeemed the Israelites from Egyptian slavery.

“Assuredly, a time is coming—declares the Lord—when it shall no more be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought the Israelite out of the land of Egypt,’ but rather,’ As the Lord lives, who brought out and led the offspring of the House of Israel from the northland and from all the lands to which I have banished them.’ And they shall dwell upon their own soil” (Jer. 23:7-8).

Just as the redemption from Egypt was wrought through violence and destruction of Israel’s Egyptian enemy, so too will the final redemption include the destruction of Israel’s current and future enemies.

The references are many and they are not all consistent, but the general thrust is clear:

• Israel’s enemies will be crushed
• while Israel will be restored to its privileged state.
• In the final redemption at the End of Days, the Children of Israel will be gathered together from the four corners of the earth (Isa. 11:12),
• the redeemed Israelite will experience everlasting joy (Isa. 51:11),
• the kings of the nations will come to realize that they erred in their brutal treatment of Israel (Isa. 52:13-53:5),
• the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt (Ezek. 40),
• the ruined cities of Israel will be restored (Ezek. 16:55),
• and all Israel will know God’s teachings (Jer. 31:33).

Although the joy and happiness of God’s redemption is centered on the one community of believers that recognize the One Great God, the entire world will also benefit.

• The false idols worshipped by the nations will disappear
• and only the One Great God will be worshipped (Isa. 2:17-18)

–remember that these texts emerged before any other forms of monotheism existed—

• evil and tyranny will be overcome (Isa. 11:4),
• weapons of war will be destroyed (Ezek. 39:9),
• the many nations will voluntarily come streaming to the mountain of God’s house in Jerusalem (Mic. 4:1-2),
• war will cease (Isa. 2:4),
• and all humanity will live without fear (Mic. 4:4).

 Keep in mind that it is not required that all humanity become Israel. In today’s terms, that means that not all are required to become Jewish. They will simply realize the truth of monotheism.

And here is a critical distinction.  All humanity will recognize the unity of God as a result of the final redemption, not as a prerequisite for it. This reflects the nonexistence of mission in the Hebrew Bible.

Humanity will eventually come around to realizing the unity of God of its own accord. That realization of monotheism is paired organically with ethics, according to the Bible.

The rules for—

• providing for the poor and the stranger,
• demanding respect for parents,
• requiring just weights and measures
• and fair judgment in courts of law,
• forbidding fraud and robbery and taking vengeance,

——are all followed by the phrase,“I am the Lord” (Leviticus 19).

The One Great God is simultaneously God of judgment and God of mercy, but never God of whim or caprice or fancy.  The God of the Hebrew Bible insists on ethical behavior and compassion to the needy.

True monotheists, therefore, must always aspire to these noble behaviors. There is a direct link between human behavior and reward or punishment.

Redemption is closely associated with the messianic hope. But in the Hebrew Bible, the messiah is a symbol of redemption rather than the bringer of redemption.

The Hebrew word for “messiah,” mashiach, means, “anointed one.” Anointing or rubbing the head or skin with oil was a way to heal damaged skin, treat wounds, or simply moisten chapped skin (Isa. 1:6; Amos 6:6). The Hebrew word for ointment, mishchah, comes from the same root. Oil was a valuable commodity during biblical times, and expensive to produce. Its pleasant nature and high value probably made it a logical sign of office, so anointing became a symbol for inducting—

• priests (Exod. 28:41),
• kings (1 Sam. 10:1),
• and prophets (1 Kings 19:16).

All of these are servants of God in the Hebrew Bible. They all have a role in ensuring that the people act out the divine will.

Only God, however, will bring the final redemption.

• That final act will include the coming of a righteous Israelite king from the line of David (Jer. 23:5-6),
• but that messianic king will not bring the redemption himself.

Even in the most mystical references to the symbols associated with the birth of a future Davidic ruler, the messianic king and God are separate entities: “The Zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall bring this to pass” (Isa. 9:1-6).

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The New Testament: Jesus as Redemptive Messiah

Redemption is understood rather differently in the New Testament, which understands that the messiah is both human and God the Redeemer.

The word Christ is a Greek translation of the Hebrew mashiach (anointed one). Christos is the actual term for mashiach used by the Jewish translators of the Hebrew Bible into the Greek version called the Septuagint that was translated some two centuries before the birth of Jesus, roughly during the second century BCE. In the Septuagint translation, each of the thirty-nine appearances of the Hebrew mashiach is rendered as christos.

The Greek and the Hebrew have exactly the same meaning there: anyone who is anointed with oil. Later, as Christianity emerged in the first century CE, Jesus was recognized as the anointed one who was also the incarnation of God. In Christian usage, and when referring to Jesus, Messiah is capitalized as a reference to God in human form.

Image from preacherwoman.wordpress.com

In the Gospel of John, when Andrew meets Jesus, “the first thing he did was to find his brother Simon and sat to him ‘We have found the Messiah’” (John 2:41). According to the Gospel of John, that Messiah is God, as articulated through the mystical introduction in which the Word of God, which is God, became flesh (John 1:1-14). Later it in the same Gospel, Jesus is represented as one with the Father (John 10:37-38, 14:7-11, 17:5,11), which most Christians understand to mean that Jesus is God.

In the New Testament, therefore, Jesus, as both Messiah and God, is the bringer of redemption. Jesus himself is the divine Redeemer. He is understood to embody the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible prophecies and paradigms, such as

• the suffering of Israel (Isa. 52:12-53:13),
• atonement for sin through sacrifice (Lev. 4, 5, 17:11),
• and the coming of God the Redeemer (Isa. 49:7, 59:20).

The prophecies of the Hebrew Bible thus become harbingers of Jesus to Christians and also become realized through the birth, mission, and passion of Christ. But Jesus died before a final divinely wrought redemption took place, so it is understood that the final redemption will occur at a future time in relation to Jesus’s return as the redemptive Messiah, Christ the Redeemer. This is known in Greek as the Parousia, the “Second Coming of Christ.” 

There is a wide range of belief among Christian about what will occur in the process of that final divine redemption, but most agree that—

• there will be a period of tribulation thorough which believers will experience worldwide persecution and be purified and strengthened by it, based on Matthew 24:15-22, Mark 13:14-20, and Luke 21:20-33.
• Most Christians also believe that Jesus Christ the Redeemer will return in the Second Coming after that tribulation, based on 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4.
• There will be a rapture, in which believers will be united with Jesus in heaven (1 Thess. 4:16-17).
• There will also be a millennium, meaning a thousand-year period that will herald the imminent end of the world:

“Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, the he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years were ended. After that he must be loosed for a little while…And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth” (Rev. 20:1-3, 7-8).

There are a number of differences among Christians beliefs over the order of events and the nature of the millennium described in the book of Revelation. This is an issue especially for conservative Protestants, whose different positions are sometimes identified as—

• postmillennialism,
• amillennialism,
• and premillenialism.

We are not concerned with the details here, but with the results. Who will benefit from the final redemption that will be brought about by the Second Coming?

As in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament stresses the redemption of the community of believers.

• In some passages, only those who believe and are baptized will be saved, “but he who does not believe shall be condemned” (Mark 16:16).
• Other passages would extend the benefits to those outside the immediate community of believers, “for all alike have sinned and are deprived of the divine glory; and all are justified by God’s free grace alone, through His act of liberation in the person Christ Jesus” (Rom. 3:23-24).
• “The universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and is to enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

Jesus’s crucifixion in the New Testament is a redemptive sacrifice reminiscent of the redemptive sacrifices called the “guilt offerings” and “sin offerings” of Leviticus chapters 4 and 5. But as we have noted in the case of “merit of the ancestors,” the redemption through Jesus’ merit and sacrifice is far greater than the redemption from the sacrificial offerings found in the Hebrew Bible.

Jesus gave his life “as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, Matt. 20:28). Some commentators have noted that “many” does not necessarily imply any kind of restriction, but the universal nature of this reception is stressed in some passages of the New Testament, such as 1 Timothy 2:5-6:

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus, himself man, who sacrificed himself to win freedom for all mankind, revealing God’s purpose at God’s good time.”

This sentiment is clear also in Acts 10:34-35:

“Peter began: ‘I now understand how it is that God has no favorites, but that in every nation those who are God-fearing and do what is right are acceptable to Him.”

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Apocalyptic Revelation in the Qur’an 

The Qur’an also contains references to sacrifice. We have already considered the Intended Sacrifice of Abraham’s son. Sacrifice in the Qur’an, however,  is a minor motif in general, and aside from the story of the near-sacrifice of Abraham’s son, there is little emphasis on any redemptive nature of sacrifice. There are, however, a great number of references to the End of Days.

The Qur’an has a number of terms that relate to specific aspects of the End of Days, including —

• the Last Day (al-yawm al-akhir),
• Day of Judgment (yawn al-din),
• and Day of Resurrection (yawn al-qiyama).

As within the ancient Near Eastern culture of the Hebrew Bible, the indigenous people of Arabia to whom Muhammad preached seem not to have been familiar with a concept of an afterlife. The revelation that Muhammad received had to emphasize the notion and repeat it in variety of ways in order to teach them the meaning of divine judgment and reward and punishment in the next world.

Some have likened the entire Qur’an to an apocalyptic revelation because apocalyptic images are so prominent in it. The Qur’an is not organized chronologically or topically however, so these many references occur throughout the scripture. Because they reflect a series of revelations that were given to Muhammad over some twenty-two years, they may appear at first to be somewhat inconsistent. Nevertheless, certain trends begin to emerge that may be summarized here. 

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  Image from www.themuslimtimes.org

  The End of Days will arrive amid great disruptions in the natural order of things.

• The earth will convulse and shake (Qur’an 99),
• and the heavens will be split in two (82) and be rolled up:

“When the sun is darkened, and when the stars fall, and the mountains are set moving, and when the camels are neglected, when the wild beasts are herded, and when the oceans are flooded, when souls are reunited, and when the infant girl that was buried [alive] is asked for what sin she was killed , when the pages are laid open and when the sky is stripped, when the Fire is ignited and when the Garden in drawn near, every soul will know what it has brought about” (81:1-14).

• Gog and Magog will be released (18:94),
• God will bring forth a beast from the center of the earth who will speak (27:82),
• and a trumpet or horn will sound
• and the dead will be called out form their graves for judgment (27:87, 36:51).

There is a clear demarcation between heaven (often referred to as al-janna, the “Garden”) and hell (jahannum or al-nar, the “Fire”). Those who enter paradise are–

• people who recognized God’s signs,
• while those who reject them will experience eternal hellfire.

Recognizing the signs of God is an idiom in the Qur’an for —

• acknowledging the truth of monotheism,
• and this recognition includes more that simple faith.
• It includes engaging in righteous behavior,
• acting with integrity,
• doing good works,
• and praying to God.

Rejecting God’s signs is —

• to deny God,
• lack humility,
• engage in evil behaviors,
• and scoff at the notion of a final judgment.

Behavior is thus built into the notion of the recognition of the signs of God (7:35-58).

There is a strong view of resurrection in the Qur’an, and a detailed description of it can be found in chapter 39, verses 67-75 (and elsewhere). It includes—

• a blowing of the trumpet (74:8)
• and the return of all dead to life,
• the gathering for judgment (6:38, 42:29)
• when everyone’s personal book of behavior will be laid open (17:13-14, 52:2-3),
• their deeds will be weighed on the scales of justice (7:8-9, 21:47),
• and all God’s creatures will bear witness against themselves (6:130).
• The result will then be entrance into heaven or hell.
• In some passages, the judgment brings eternal damnation or salvation (4:169, 10:52, 25:15).
• In others, the time in hell is unspecified, so later Islamic writings disagreed over whether the punishment of damnation is eternal.

We noted how the notion of salvation in the English language is strongly influenced by Christian theology, and that an exact equivalent for the word does not exist in the Hebrew Bible. Neither is it found in the Qur’an, but other words convey similar ideas.

• One is the term al-fawz al-azim (supreme success):

“Whoever obeys God and His messenger will be entered into the Garden under which rivers flow, abiding there forever. That is the supreme success” (4:13).

“God promises the believers, men and women, Gardens under which rivers flow, abiding there forever, pleasant dwelling is the Gardens of Eden—God’s favor is best. This is the supreme success” (9:72).

Believers are therefore “the successful” (9:20).

Another term with a meaning similar to al-fawz al-azim is muflilun (the successful).

• On the day God will call to them,
• those who have repented, believed, and done righteous will be successful (28:67).
• They are a community that calls to the good,
• demanding good deeds and forbidding evil (2:104),
• who follow the light that has been sent down (7:157),
• and who seek God’s countenance (30:38).
• God is pleased with them;
• they are the party of God (hizbullah)
• and will be brought into Gardens under which rivers flow, abiding there forever (59:22).

These descriptions apply most directly to the followers of divine revelation as articulated by his prophet Muhammad, but these are not only ones who will be favored by God.

According to the Qur’an, God saved all of his prophets. All these prophets besides Muhammad lived long before the Qur’an was revealed, and they include Abraham, Jonah, Moses, and Lot, along with others that are not known from the Bible. One such prophet is Hud, about whom the Qur’an mentions,

“We saved him and those with him by a mercy from Us, but We cut off the root of those who denied Our signs and were not believers” (7:72).

Other prophets that God saved along with the righteous among their people are Salih (11:66) and Shu’ayb (11:95). Even the wife of the evil Pharaoh was saved by her belief:

“God made an example with the wife of Pharaoh for those who believe, when she said, ‘My Lord, build me a house in Your presence in the Garden and save me from Pharaoh and his acts. Deliver me from the evil nation” (66:11).

This example and other verses extend redemption and salvation to righteous believers who are not official Muslims but who practice the same kind of ethical monotheism in their daily lives that is taught by Islam.

The heavy Qur’anic emphasis on redemption, judgment, and reward and punishment in an afterlife, and the varied language and images in these passages, have been read in a variety of ways by Muslim scholars. Some have come away from them with the belief that only those who follow God as articulated by the specific teachings of the Qur’an and the prophet Muhammad are entitled entry into heaven. Other learned scholars have understood the Qur’an to teach that anyone who does good works and believes in God and divine judgment merits entrance into paradise. Sometimes the same scriptural verses are cited to support both positions. 

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This phenomenon of inclusive redemption that extends beyond the immediate the immediate community of believers is common to all three families of monotheism.

In each case, scripture associates redemption first with the community of believers who have dedicated their lives and often suffered in their loyalty to their religion. Recall the scripture reflects the earliest historical period of merging religions when the believers suffered the most for their faithfulness and devotion to God and the emerging religious system. It is logical and reasonable for the authoritative core of the religious system to promise rewards for such dedicated allegiance and faithful devotion.

In each scripture, however, there is  also room for redemption or salvation for those who do not belong to the specific religious community. There is room in each to extend redemption beyond membership in the chosen community of God. 

The religious literatures that emerged to interpret scripture in the generations following the revelations sometimes expanded the pool of those available to redemption. Sometimes they narrowed it.

These are the interpretive literatures of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and they were always deeply influenced by the historical periods in which they were written.

As usual, when the religious thinkers whose views are represented in them lived in a world of scarcity and competition and when life was difficult, they tended to narrow their view of those worthy of redemption. But when they lived in a world of plenty when life was good, they tended to be more generous in their assessment of those worthy of salvation. Perhaps it was God’s design that every case of scriptural revelation allows for generosity or parsimoniousness.