‘Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof!’ Reading Leviticus 25:10 through the centuries
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: This paper follows the text of Leviticus 25:10 in the Hebrew Bible and in selected works of the exegetical tradition of both Rabbinic Judaism and Western Christianity, in order to provide a lens through which to assess the use of a biblical text which was instrumental during the early modern period in formulating ideas about the Republic and its use in the modern liberal state. The main argument of the paper is that over time the meaning of the text shifted from the socio-economic to the salvific to the political, depending on the context in which it was read. Further, all the authors cited here approached the text as an authoritative normative text, and did not look at the text as a textual artefact. While the move to re-introduce Jewish Sources into the debate in political theory is to be welcomed, it is argued that the results would be improved by balanced reading strategies and by interaction with critical academic biblical scholarship.
Source: History of European Ideas
Author: Jonathan Stökl
Institution: King's College London
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2807734667