Subject: Re: israelite monotheism and isonomia
From: Richard Landes (rlandes@bu.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 19 2004 - 19:57:58 EDT
> > At 12:59 PM 9/19/2004, you wrote: > > >And you think that Judaism had no such class structure? > > > > not legal. do you know of any exceptions in the civil and criminal code? > >They themselves took their status for legal, I think. However, I know of no >exceptions in the civil and criminal code, at least not ad hoc. that, i wd argue is the key. it is characteristic of "prime divider" societies (ones where the elite are systematically distinguished from the commoners) that theft is punishable by death (ie commoner cannot steal from elites), but violence is punishable by money (wergeld in germanic tribal culture), since honor-shame cultures demand blood as a means to restore honor (among warriors/elites). this is the opposite of the structure of both israelite society where the "self-help" justice system rapidly disappears, and the democratic greek city-state. > > the fact that david was (even retrospectively) held to task for what he >did > > is exceptional, no? how many other kings of those days had to answer to > > people denouncing them for sleeping with women and knocking off >problematic > > witnesses? in any other culture, the letter he wrote to his general wd > > have disappeared, not appeared in the major royal narrative as an > > indictment of the hero-king. > >It is a twofold problem : At first the authority of Torah and second, the >continuous legitimation of a future Davidic king (or prince as in the DSS). >Without the tricky apology of David all messianic pretenders would sit in >the rain of guilty illegality and, more worth - generality and authority of >Torah would be undermined. which makes my point, no? these are not the kinds of concerns that normally move political ideologues of these times (or later ones for that matter). indeed we can take this kind of moral concern and conncection with the messiah back to judah and tamar, where judah plans to burn tamar in an honor killing, but, at great cost to his personal honor, admits that she was more righteous than he, and thereby saves the two kids in her womb, one of whom establishes the line of messiah. > > >That is: > > > > > >All animals are equal > > >But some animals are more equal than others. > > > > as far as i know, no other ancient polity even posited the notion that all > > animals (or humans) were equal. that inequalities in practice developed is > > hardly new (true of modern democracies as well). but the idea that there > > is one law for native born and foreigner seems to me to be quite unusual. >no? > > r > >I'm unsure concerning the experimental Atenism. Unfortunately, Tom Simms, >our specialist on Egyptology is no longer among us. >But I recall Egyptian poetry (dirges) that deals with the theme already >before Akhenaten. In any case it is an interesting theme. i just did a chapter on atenism as a millennial movt, and there seems to be no interest in equality before the law as a legal principle, altho some of the spiritual material might, had it continued, suggested something along those lines. but atenism is predicated on the petersonian monotheistic principle "one god one king", whereas the isonomic variety seems to favor "no king but god". r >_Dierk
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