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Order and History, Volume I, Israel and Revelation The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin, Volume 14: Order and History, Volume I, Israel and Revelation Maurice P. Hogan, Editor University of Missouri Press the collected works of ERIC VOEGELIN VOLUME 14 ORDER AND HISTORY VOLUME I ISRAEL AND REVELATION projected volumes in the collected works 1. On the Form of the American Mind 2. Race and State 3. The History of the Race Idea: From Ray to Carus 4. The Authoritarian State: An Essay on the Problem of the Austrian State 5. Modernity without Restraint: The Political Religions; The New Science of Politics; and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism 6. Anamnesis: Toward a Theory of History and Politics 7. Published Essays, 1922–1928 8. Published Essays, 1928–1933 9. Published Essays, 1934–1939 10. Published Essays, 1940–1952 11. Published Essays, 1953–1965 12. Published Essays, 1966–1985 13. Selected Book Reviews 14. Order and History, Volume I, Israel and Revelation 15. Order and History, Volume II, The World of the Polis 16. Order and History, Volume III, Plato and Aristotle 17. Order and History, Volume IV, The Ecumenic Age 18. Order and History, Volume V, In Search of Order 19. History of Political Ideas, Volume I, Hellenism, Rome, and Early Christianity 20. History of Political Ideas, Volume II, The Middle Ages to Aquinas 21. History of Political Ideas, Volume III, The Later Middle Ages 22. History of Political Ideas, Volume IV, Renaissance and Reformation 23. History of Political Ideas, Volume V, Religion and the Rise of Modernity 24. History of Political Ideas, Volume VI, Revolution and the New Science 25. History of Political Ideas, Volume VII, The New Order and Last Orientation 26. History of Political Ideas, Volume VIII, Crisis and the Apocalypse of Man 27. The Nature of the Law, and Related Legal Writings 28. What Is History? And Other Late Unpublished Writings 29. Selected Correspondence 30. Selected Correspondence 31. Hitler and the Germans 32. Miscellaneous Papers 33. Miscellaneous Papers 34. Autobiographical Reflections and Index order and history I. Israel and Revelation II. The World of the Polis III. Plato and Aristotle IV. The Ecumenic Age V. In Search of Order editorial board Paul Caringella Jürgen Gebhardt Thomas A. Hollweck Ellis Sandoz The Editorial Board offers grateful acknowledgment to the Earhart Foundation, Liberty Fund, Inc., and Robert J. Cihak, M.D., for support provided at various stages in the preparation of this book for publication. A special thanks for support goes to the Charlotte and Walter Kohler Charitable Trust. The University of Missouri Press offers its grateful acknowledgment for a generous contribution from the Eric Voegelin Institute in support of the publication of this volume. THE COLLECTED WORKS OF ERIC VOEGELIN VOLUME 14 ORDER AND HISTORY VOLUME I ISRAEL AND REVELATION edited with an introduction by MAURICE P. HOGAN universityof missouri press columbia and london Copyright © 2001 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved 54321 0504030201 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Voegelin, Eric, 1901– Order and history. p. cm.—(The collected works of Eric Voegelin; v. 14) Originally published: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1956– 1987. With new introd. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: v. 1. Israel and Revelation / edited with an introduction by Maurice P. Hogan. isbn 0-8262-1351-0 (v. 1 : alk. paper) 1. Civilization—Philosophy. 2. Order (Philosophy). I. Hogan, Maurice P. II. Title. cb19.v58 2001 901—dc21 99–053537 ⅜ϱ ™This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Designer: Albert Crochet Typesetter: BookComp, Inc. Printer and binder: Thomson-Shore, Inc. Typeface: Trump Mediaeval Contents Editor’s Introduction 1 Preface 19 Acknowledgments 25 Introduction: The Symbolization of Order 39 Part One. The Cosmological Order of the Ancient Near East 1. Mesopotamia 55 2. The Achaemenian Empire 85 3. Egypt 91 Part Two. The Historical Order of Israel 4. Israel and History 157 5. The Emergence of Meaning 176 6. The Historiographic Work 188 Part Three. History and the Trail of Symbols 7. From Clan Society to Kingship 233 8. The Struggle for Empire 265 9. The Mundane Climax 303 10. The End of Israel’s Worldly Existence 361 Part Four. Moses and the Prophets 11. The Deuteronomic Torah 405 12. Moses 431 13. The Prophets 481 Index of Biblical References 571 Index of Subjects and Names 577 This page intentionally left blank ISRAEL AND REVELATION This page intentionally left blank Editor’s Introduction Israel and Revelation is the first of a projected series, Order and History, that sets out to trace the history of order in human society from its emergence in the ancient Near East civilizations to the modern period. As his work progressed, Eric Voegelin’s plan under- went modifications with the appearance of Order and History, vol. IV, The Ecumenic Age.1 Nevertheless, in spite of subsequent refine- ments and shifts in his thinking, Israel and Revelation retains its validity and deserves to be studied in its own right. For Voegelin, history becomes intelligible when seen as a strug- gle for true order, which is a “reality to be discovered retrospec- tively in the flow of events.” The theme that opens the preface serves as an introduction to the entire series: “The order of history emerges from the history of order.” The task undertaken by the author was to discern in the flow of history the symbolic forms by which human beings have ordered their personal and social ex- istence. Israel and Revelation examines the ancient Near Eastern civilizations with their cosmic-divine locus of order, and also the historical locus of order in Israel. By order Voegelin has specifically in mind the transcendental “order of being” to which personal and social life must be attuned if it is to be truly fulfilled, and which gifted individuals through the ages have been able to articulate and formulate as symbolizations of order. The word history includes human existence under changing political conditions, through the rise and fall of civilizations, but it refers especially to the overall movement of human life in a meaningful direction in the light of 1. Eric Voegelin, Order and History, vol. IV, The Ecumenic Age, now available in The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin (hereinafter, CW), vol. 17, ed. with intro. by Michael Franz (1974; Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2000). 1 editor’s introduction which political events may be understood. History then becomes the struggle for attunement to the partners in the community of being, a struggle for truth in relation to God and human beings, society and world: “Every society is burdened with the task, under its concrete conditions, of creating an order that will endow the fact of its existence with meaning in terms of ends divine and human.” One of the leading political philosophers of his time, Eric Voege- lin undertook his study in response to the ideological mass move- ments of the early twentieth century that succeeded in enforcing spiritual blindness and social “amnesia.” His aim was to recover truth, an openness to reality embracing personal, social, historical, and ontological dimensions disclosed through “the most differen- tiating” experiences and symbolizations left behind in the human march through time. His study was to be the occasion for a re- discovery of true order as a remedy to the modern crisis: “not an attempt to explore curiosities of the past, but an inquiry into the structure of order in which we live presently.” Voegelin is one of the few political philosophers to include the experiences of Israel as part of the search for political order in history. It has become customary to think of political science as concerned only with pragmatic history. Voegelin invites us to pon- der the metaphysical source of order, and Israel and Revelation presents his interpretation of the political experience of Israel un- der the symbol “revelation.” For him the experience of the tran- scendent God who established a covenant with Israel is, together with the Greek discovery of the life of reason, one of the two great “leaps in being” that occurred in the Western world. The present volume analyzes the Israelite leap in being against the backdrop of the ancient civilizations as a contribution to the understanding of order in history. The drama of Israel epitomizes the problems associated with the tension of existence as Israel attempted to rec- oncile the claims of transcendent order with those of pragmatic existence and so becomes paradigmatic. The thrust of Voegelin’s study was to clarify the order of being that was articulated in Is- rael’s leap in being beyond the cosmological mode of existence. From now on the world-transcendent God will occupy first place, while participation in worldly existence recedes to second place. An analysis of the symbols will provide the key for assessing the distinctiveness of Israel: “Israel alone had history as an inner form, while other societies existed in the form of cosmological myth.” 2 editor’s introduction Voegelin’s ambition was to develop a science of politics that would more adequately reflect the full range of human reality. In the introduction, “The Symbolization of Order,” Voegelin lays out clearly the conceptual framework within which his vision of the order of history will unfold. He envisages political order as an act of participation in the universal order of being. The structure and scope of being is experienced and symbolized as God and hu- mans, world and society, which form a primordial community of being. The exploration of this field is concerned with the true na- ture of each of these partners and the relationships between them.
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