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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > Philosophy of religion
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Exodus And Revolution (Paperback, Revised)
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Exodus And Revolution (Paperback, Revised)
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Too much scholarship went into this short treatise to call it a
meditation, but that's what it is anyway. The author of Just and
Unjust Wars, Spheres of Justice, and numerous political essays
reflects on the political meaning of the Exodus story, as well as
on the use to which it has been put since the Puritan Revolution of
the 17th-century. Walzer (professor of social science at the
Institute for Advanced Study) concludes that there are two basic
interpretations of the story of the Israelites. One, which he calls
Exodus politics, is grounded in a specific set of circumstances of
oppression and corruption (i.e., Egypt, where the bondage of the
Israelites was coupled with a revulsion against and longing for the
luxury of their oppressors). Exodus politics is about the journey
from Egypt to Canaan, a journey in which Moses plays the role of
guide and teacher, forming the Israelites into a new people fit for
the Promised Land. The Promised Land is itself about the
transformation of Canaan into Israel - that is, the disappointment
of reaching the goal only to discover that the journey is not over.
This is a kind of social democratic politics, says Walzer, whose
mode is education, realism, and moderation, and it is the
interpretation and the politics that defines his position. The
other dominant strain he calls messianic politics, and here the
story is universalized: rather than Egypt, the deliverance is seen
as being from oppression tout court, and the goal of the Promised
Land takes on an immediacy and joy in the Final Days. This latter
is the politics of some radical groups of the left (in Leninism,
Moses and the Levites take on the guise of a vanguard party, an
interpretation rendered by Lincoln Steffens, among others), as well
as of the messianic right in Israel today. Walzer's method is to
proceed through the stages of the story, offering alternative
interpretations and political glosses as he goes. The trip is well
worth taking, even more for the ease with which he handles the
biblical interpretation, and the richness the story acquires, than
for the relevance of the story to political theory. All in all:
satisfying and exciting at once. (Kirkus Reviews)
Noted political philosopher Michael Walzer offers a moving
meditation on the political meanings of the biblical story of
Exodus. "Walzer knows his Bible. He stands in the growing ranks of
contemporary academicians who are discovering in biblical and
rabbinic sources a literature rich with significance for modern
man".--Chaim Potok, "Philadelphia Inquirer".
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