Milton's Dichotomy of “Judaism” and “Hebraism”

PMLA ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 89 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel S. Stollman
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Liberty Of Conscience ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law

Milton scholars have long been aware of inconsistencies in Milton's views regarding the Old Testament and the Jews. He shows, concurrently, “powerful judaistic motifs” and “anti-judaistic motifs.” He advocated liberty of conscience but was silent during the debate on the Readmission of the Jews. Milton's views may have evolved or changed but he was doctrinally consistent. He dichotomized the Old Testament constellation of personae and concepts into “Judaic” motifs which he rejected and “Hebraic” motifs which he adopted. He took Paul's antithesis of the Law (the Flesh) and the Gospel (the Spirit) and applied it within the Hebrew Bible itself. The “Judaic” complex is that which is human, relevant to the Jews as a people inclined to servitude, and the “external” aspect of the Mosaic Law, also a form of bondage. The “Hebraic” complex is divine, universal, and the “internal” Scripture, equated with freedom and. ultimately, Christian Liberty. The “Hebraic” motif supplies a continuity for the Scriptures. The dichotomy accords with Milton's philosophy (Plato's and Aristotle's dualisms) and with his methodology of structural and imagistic contrasts. The dichotomy explains the presence of “judaistic” and “anti-judaistic” motifs as well as his “reluctance” to grant the Jews freedom of worship.

Laws in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Greengus
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Biblical Law ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The People ◽  
Divine Origin ◽  
The Law ◽  
Criminal Behaviors ◽  
The Many

Biblical laws are found mainly in the Pentateuch (i.e., the first five books of the Hebrew Bible). The laws are linked to the figure of Moses, who is depicted as having received them directly from God in order to transmit them to the people of Israel during the years in the Wilderness after being released from slavery in Egypt. Biblical laws are thus presented as being of divine origin. Their authority was further bolstered by a tradition that they were included in covenants (i.e., formal agreements made between God and the people as recorded in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy). Similar claims of divine origin were not made for other ancient Near Eastern laws; their authority flowed from kings, who issued the laws, although these kings might also be seen as having been placed on their thrones through the favor of the gods. The biblical law collections are unlike other ancient Near Eastern “codes” in that they include sacral laws (i.e., governing cult, worship, and ritual, as well as secular laws: namely, governing civil, and criminal behaviors). This mingling of sacral and secular categories is the likely reason both for the many terms used to denote the laws, as well as for the unexpected number of formulations in which they are presented. The formulations used in biblical law can be classified as “casuistic” or “non-casuistic.” They are not equally distributed in the books of the Pentateuch nor are they equally used with secular and sacral laws. While there are similarities in content between secular laws found in the Hebrew Bible and laws found in the ancient Near Eastern law “codes,” the latter do not exhibit a comparable variety in the numbers of law terms and formulations. The Hebrew Bible tended to “blur” the differences between the law terms and their formulations, ultimately to the point of subsuming them all under the law term torah (“teaching”) to describe the totality of the divinely given laws in the Pentateuch. Biblical studies in general and Pentateuchal studies in particular are challenged by the fact that manuscripts contemporary with the events described have not survived the ravages the time. Scholars must therefore rely on looking for “clues” within the texts themselves (e.g., the laws cited by the prophets, the reform of Josiah, the teaching of torah by Ezra, and evidence for customs and customary laws found in books of the Hebrew Bible outside of the Pentateuch).

The Territorial Contamination of the Blood

2021 ◽  
pp. 125-153
Author(s):  
Steven Grosby
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Legal Anthropology ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Law

The implicit paradoxical combination of monotheism and monolatry, characteristic of Hebraism, has consequences for law. This chapter discusses the legal anthropology of the territorial kinship found in the Hebrew Bible, by examining the categories of the native of the land, citizen, the alien who resides in the land, and the foreigner. This legal anthropology represents a Hebraic deflection from Christian universalism. The problem of describing that legal anthropology as Hebraism when it appears in the absence of references to the Old Testament, for example, in Frederic Maitland’s Constitutional History of England, is discussed. Finally, a re-examination of the concept of secularization is undertaken, with regards to the law of the land.

The New Testament, Mosaic Law and Ecclesiastical Law Today

2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (36) ◽  
pp. 60-66
Author(s):  
Anthony Bash
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ecclesiastical Law ◽  
Positive Law ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law ◽  
Common Misconceptions

This article explores the New Testament's critique of Old Testament law, a genus of positive law. It looks at the applicability of that critique to modern ecclesiastical law: The article identifies three common misconceptions about the view of the New Testament concerning Old Testament law, and then sets out what the New Testament does say about Old Testament law, principally from the writings of St Paul. The principles underlying the New Testament's critique are established. The critique is made not on natural law grounds but on pragmatic and utilitarian grounds. The grounds of the critique are (i) the efficacy of the law to achieve its true intent; and (ii) the extent to which human beings exaggerate the usefulness of Old Testament law.

scholarly journals Knowing Yet Not Knowing

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Eko Nugroho Onggosanusi
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Law ◽  
Mosaic Law

Is Romans 10 simply an excursus on the need for evangelism and mission in the midst of Paul’s “doctrine of predestination”? In this article, a chiasm is identified and utilized as a framework to further analyze Romans 10. It is demonstrated that the chiasm lends itself to accentuate the epistemological irony of Israel’s response to the gospel. Despite the glory of the gospel that was proclaimed in the Hebrew Bible, the majority of the Jews in Paul’s time remained in ignorance as they missed the hermeneutical key to understanding the Mosaic Law, namely, “Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” Rather than an excursus within Paul’s doctrinal discourse, Romans 10 is the climax of the irony of Israel as the most privileged people who failed in their hearing and understanding.

Canons and Rules of Faith

2019 ◽  
pp. 54-70
Author(s):  
Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Greek Translation ◽  
Rule Of Faith ◽  
Clement Of Alexandria ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Law ◽  
Catholic Epistles ◽  
Theological Thought

A canon is a collection of sacred books. A rule of faith is a concise statement of Christian beliefs. The Hebrew (Jewish) canon (the Christian Old Testament) comprised three parts: the Law (five books), the Prophets (eight books), and the Writings (eleven books). The Septuagint or Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible is longer, by at least seven books. The earliest New Testament canon appeared before 200, and it was finalized c.400. The New Testament comprises the Gospel (4) and the Apostle (13 letters, or 14 with Hebrews). Luke added Acts to his Gospel and John the Presbyter wrote Revelation. Seven catholic epistles complete the canon. The rule of faith, prominent in Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian, guided the perception of orthodoxy, and theological thought, in the second and third centuries. Later the creeds (baptismal and conciliar) functioned as the rule of faith had earlier.

scholarly journals The Literary Motif of Cush in the Old Testament

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Marta Hoyland Lavik
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Law ◽  
Biblical Scholar

There are 56 references to Cush in the Old Testament and these occur in all the three main corpuses of the Hebrew Bible namely the Law, the Prophets and the Writings. Traditional historical-critical scholarship has not showed great interest in the Old Testament texts about Cush. However, the Nigerian biblical scholar David Tuesday Adamo has through his many contributions about the Cush texts made the guild observant of what can be labelled an African presence in the Old Testament given that Cush is applied as a literary motif in the Old Testament. Following a presentation of the Cush texts in the Old Testament, this paper examines how the literary motif of Cush functions in the text, taking Isaiah 18 as a representative example.

Philosophical Reduction(ism) in Meta-Language Reconstructions of Yhwh as Religious Object

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco W Gericke
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Research Problem ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Unified Theory ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Introductory Overview ◽  
Theory Of Everything ◽  
Interpretative Approach

In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament scholarship, one encounters a variety of reductive perspectives on what exactly Yahweh as religious object is assumed to be. In this article, a clarification of the research problem is followed by an introductory overview of what is currently available on this topic as is attested in the context of various interpretative methodologies and their associated meta-languages. It is argued that any attempt to describe the actual metaphysical nature and ontological status of the religious object in the jargon of a particular interpretative approach is forever prone to committing the fallacy of reductionism. Even so, given the irreducible methodological perspectivism supervening on heuristic specificity, reductive accounts as such are unavoidable. If this is correct, then it follows a fortiori that a unified theory (of everything Yahweh can be said to be) and an ideal meta-language (with which to perfectly reconstruct the religious object within second-order discourse) are a priori impossible.

Cyril of Alexandria

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hauna T. Ondrey
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Cyril Of Alexandria ◽  
Preliminary Comparison ◽  
Mosaic Law

Chapter 3, “Cyril of Alexandria: The Twelve within the First Covenant,” identifies the primary role Cyril assigns the Twelve Prophets in their ministry to Old Testament Israel as summoning Israel to adherence to the Mosaic law and educating Israel regarding God’s nature. While Cyril finds the prophetic oracles replete with christological content, a careful reading of his Commentary on the Twelve reveals that he holds the typological value of these oracles only retrospectively accessible. Isolating Cyril’s view of the prophetic ministry to ante Christum Israel limits the prospective christological revelation of the prophets and reveals the positive role Cyril ascribes the Mosaic law prior to Christ’s advent. A preliminary comparison of Chapters 2 and 3 concludes this chapter.

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