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3. The Biblical Background to Covenanting
- University of Missouri Press
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22 The Biblical Background to Covenanting 3 The Bible is the main source for Western political theology. It is the most influential text in Anglo-American political thought and probably presents the oldest political constitution in the historical record.1 But the Bible is significant not because it prescribes a particular type of regime.2 Regime classification is a Greek and Roman project.3 It is the relational attributes of biblical religion that make it a political theology par excellence, and central to those relational claims are the biblical covenants. ORIGIN OF “COVENANT” In English Bibles, the word “covenant” is translated from the Hebrew word berith, which is used more than three hundred times in the Hebrew Bible. The etymology of the word is uncertain, and potential translations include “to cut,” “to bind,” “to hand,” “to fetter,” or “to eat.” The “cutting” may refer to its use in a ceremony not unlike the one found in the biblical text where an animal is cut in half in a covenant-making ceremony (Genesis 15:9–10). Translating berith as “to eat” may refer to a special meal that accompanied a covenanting ceremony (Genesis 31:51–54). Hittite civilization, which preceded the established Israelite society, also used treaties similar to covenants. There is some controversy regarding how closely the biblical covenants parallel treaties used by surrounding civilizations ; the latter might safely be considered proto-covenants compared to most of the biblical covenants since they came before, and did not include all the elements of, the biblical covenants.4 Unlike the covenants of the surrounding cultures , the biblical covenants emphasized a certain level of equality or reciprocity.5 The Biblical Background to Covenanting 23 The covenants used by surrounding civilizations often established hierarchy or vassal relationships. Berith becomes diatheke in the Greek translation of Hebrew texts, a word that most frequently referred to a last will and testament. This led to the now familiar Christian titles for two parts of the Bible: the Old “Testament” and the New “Testament.”6 Diatheke appears more than thirty times in the apostolic Scriptures, with its first usage in Paul’s epistles.7 Some of these usages are quotations of the Old Testament, however. In later Latin usage, the word most used for “covenant” is foedus, the root of the English “federal.” There is some controversy in biblical studies concerning the meaning of “the covenant” (berith) in the Hebrew Bible. Some argue that berith refers to the covenant itself, while others focus on the act of covenanting.8 Rendtorff focuses on what he calls the “covenant formula,” which occurs more than thirty times in the Hebrew Scriptures. The covenant formula includes one or both of two important statements: “I will be a God for you” and “You shall be a people for me.” This formula, Rendtorff argues, is used more systematically than the word berith.9 It is the act of election—Rendtorff’s “covenant formula”—that defines the covenant and its relational characteristic. God’s taking a people for Himself is commonly referred to in theology as “election.”10 THE HEBREW CHRONOLOGY Noah Excluding for now what some Reformed Protestants claim about a prelapsarian (pre-Fall) covenant, the first politically significant biblical covenant is made between God and Noah. God makes a covenant with Noah in the plan for Noah’s escape and afterward makes a covenant concerning the whole earth (Genesis 6 and 9).11 God not only denies Himself the right to repeat the destruction of the Flood, He establishes universal justice. This latter point has great political significance because it may overlap with what has been called “natural law.” However much biblical natural law may be similar in ethical content with Greek or Roman philosophy, for example, biblical natural law is not identical to those articulations. The universal and natural law of the Hebrew Scriptures resides first in the will of God. Greek or Roman natural law (as articulated by philosophers ) is found in a superintending nature that lacks the qualities of a relational and covenanting God.12 The Noahide covenant is an unconditional covenant. This means that there are no stated requirements for human faithfulness and no terms by which the covenant must be kept; God is bound to the covenant regardless of human faithfulness . It is also a unilateral covenant. This means that there is no expectation of performance on the part of humankind. God demands justice in a passage later [3.239.208.72...