Judaism and Revelation Eric Voegelin’s Israel and Revelation Reconsidered

Abstract

This paper raises a number of critical questions concerning Eric Voegelin’s work, Israel and Revelation. First, does Voegelin’s vision that the kingdom of G-d entail the dissolution of national, racial, and ethnic groups, most notably the Jewish people, provide a basis for a peaceful and viable world order? Or does it in fact give expression to Christian supersessionism that does not tolerate different or competing world views and therefore calls for their suppression and destruction? Second, writing in the immediate aftermath of the Shoah, his work does not address the fundamental questions of divine righteousness, i.e., is G-d truly omnipotent, omnipresent, engaged, and just in dealing with human beings? Apart from his model of submission, do human beings bear responsibility for bringing order into the world in which we live? Third, Voegelin misjudges the character of the literary sources found in the Hebrew Bible, insofar as he simplistically presupposes that biblical literature is too closely identified with the events that it portrays. Such a perspective prevents him from understanding how biblical literature portrays and interprets events to serve as a basis from which later generations of readers, such as Judaism and Christianity, might learn and construct their own understandings of the world and of G-d. Fourth, to what degree does Voegelin artificially choose elements of biblical literature, such as the prophetic books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, that support his understanding of G-d and history, and ignore those that do not, such as Ezekiel and the Book of the Twelve Prophets, that present very different understandings of ideal human and divine interrelationships? Furthermore, to what extent does he selectively read elements of the Book of Isaiah that support his understanding, prompting him to misunderstand the book? Finally, to what degree does he misunderstand Judaism, particularly its concept of the chosen people, thereby ignoring Judaism’s view that nations can and should live together in peace in keeping with the laws of Noah? The balance of the paper addresses each of these questions.