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‘Exodus’ and ‘Liberation’ as Theological Metaphors: A Critical Case-study of the Use of Allegory and Misunderstood Analogies in Ethics*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
In December 1977, Israeli politicians and journalists were allowed once again, after so long, to visit the Egyptian pyramids. It was during this visit that a saying of their Prime Minister Menachem Begin went around: ‘Just think! Your forefathers built these marvellous works!’ What memories does this reminder call forth? Does it express Israel's unyielding self-assurance, which not only runs across the traces of its own history all over the Near Middle East, but also calls them to the attention of others? Should the representatives of Modern Egypt perhaps be told that they stand in a different sort of continuity with the great dynasties on the Nile from the Jews? Or does Begin's reminder also revive the ineradicable knowledge of Israel's helplessness, which in the grey dawn of its history drove its fathers to the granaries of Egypt and made them there dependent upon their providers, until the time came when Yahweh led them ‘out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage’ (Exod. 20:2)?
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1981
References
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page 500 note 23 In the history of the Church there have been three sects which have called themselves ‘exodus communities’, because they were expecting the return of Christ at a certain place and wanted to start on their way to that place. See Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 3rd ed., II, 1958, 832.Google Scholar
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page 501 note 25 Gutiérrez, p. 196: ‘Real liberation will be the work of the oppressed themselves. In the man deprived of his rights, the Lord redeems history.’
page 501 note 26 ibid., p. 192.
page 502 note 27 Bloch, E., Atheismus im Christentum: Zur Religion des Exodus und des Reichs, Frankfurt a/M 1968, esp. pp. 115ff.Google Scholar
page 503 note 28 ibid., pp. 37ff., 57ff.
page 504 note 29 In order to be able to derive ethical statements from dogmatics, Karl Barth and many of his followers understand the difference in the analogy under the catchword ‘a christological foundation of ethics’. See here my contribution to the discussion: ‘Was heißt “christologische Begründung” christlichen Handelns heute?’, Ev. Tk, 35, 1975, pp. 407–21.
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page 505 note 31 One hopes that the misinterpretation of this “living space” in terms of a geographical-political ideology, the unfortunate results of which are in living memory, has been ruled out. The metaphor of space is discussed in modern theological ethics, as far as I know, only by Dietrich Bonhoeffer; see his Ethik, 2nd ed., ed. by Bethge, E., Munich 1953, pp. 61ff.Google Scholar, where it is discussed, however, without reference to the problem of freedom. For a different approach, see Iwand, H. J., Gesetz und Evangelium, ed. by Kreck, W., in Nachgelassene Werke IV, Munich 1964, p. 45Google Scholar. By means of the metaphor of space, that element of passivity in the Exodus and liberation is expressed, which H. Gollwitzer has strongly emphasised in different ways in his interpretation of Christian freedom; see e.g. his Krummes Holz— aufrechler Gang, Munich 1970, pp. 364f.Google Scholar
page 505 note 32 Karl Barth, on the other hand, spoke of ‘reality’ in two senses: an onto-theological reality (the ‘reality of God’) and reality from an ethical point of view (‘realisation’). This shifting use of language is also found in Bonhoeffer's ‘ethics’. From this starting-point, three conceptions begin to clash with one another: possibility as. what is not yet reality; possibility as the reality awaiting man's disposal (i.e., it is what can be realised); and possibility as a potency in reality (as distinct from reality and necessity). For ethics, this ambiguity is extremely confusing.
page 507 note 33 This is the difference between transcending as an incessant movement of life and the making of a transition as the entry into God's world.