1. Divine revelation signifies two different things: first, God’s
self-revelation, which the Rabbis called _Gilluy Shekinah_, “the
manifestation of the divine Presence,” and, second, the revelation of His
will, for which they used the term _Torah min ha Shamayim_, “the Law as
emanating from God.”(73) The former appealed to the child-like belief of
the Biblical age, which took no offense at anthropomorphic ideas, such as
the descent of God from heaven to earth, His appearing to men in some
visible form, or any other miracle; the latter appears to be more
acceptable to those of more advanced religious views. Both conceptions,
however, imply that the religious truth of revelation was communicated to
man by a special act of God.
2. Each creative act is a mystery beyond the reach of human observation.
In all fields of endeavor the flashing forth of genius impresses us as the
work of a mysterious force, which acts upon an elect individual or nation
and brings it into close touch with the divine. In the religious genius
especially is this true; for in him all the spiritual forces of the age
seem to be energized and set into motion, then to burst forth into a new
religious consciousness, which is to revolutionize religious thought and
feeling. In a child-like age when the emotional life and the imagination
predominate, and man’s mind, still receptive, is overwhelmed by mighty
visions, the Deity stirs the soul in some form perceptible to the senses.
Thus the “seer” assumes a trance-like state where the Ego, the
self-conscious personality, is pushed into the background; he becomes a
passive instrument, the mouthpiece of the Deity; from Him he receives a
message to the people, and in his vision he beholds God who sends him.
This appearance of God upon the background of the soul, which reflects Him
like a mirror, is Revelation.(74)
3. The states of the soul when men see such visions of the Deity
predominate in the beginnings of all religions. Accordingly, Scripture
ascribes such revelations to non-Israelites as well as to the patriarchs
and prophets of Israel,—to Abimelek and Laban, Balaam, Job, and
Eliphaz.(75) Therefore the Jewish prophet is not distinguished from the
rest by the capability to receive divine revelation, but rather by the
intrinsic nature of the revelation which he receives. His vision comes
from a moral God. The Jewish genius perceived God as the moral power of
life, whether in the form expressed by Abraham, Moses, Elijah, or by the
literary prophets, and all of these, coming into touch with Him, were
lifted into a higher sphere, where they received a new truth, hitherto
hidden from man. In speaking through them, God appeared actually to have
stepped into the sphere of human life as its moral Ruler. This
self-revelation of God as the Ruler of man in righteousness, which must be
viewed in the life of any prophet as a providential act, forms the great
historical sequence in the history of Israel, upon which rests the Jewish
religion.(76)
4. The divine revelation in Israel was by no means a single act, but a
process of development, and its various stages correspond to the degrees
of culture of the people. For this reason the great prophets also depended
largely upon dreams and visions, at least in their consecration to the
prophetic mission, when one solemn act was necessary. After that the
message itself and its new moral content set the soul of the prophet
astir. Not the vision or its imagery, but the new truth itself seizes him
with irresistible force, so that he is carried away by the divine power
and speaks as the mouthpiece of God, using lofty poetic diction while in a
state of ecstacy. Hence he speaks of God in the _first_ person. The
highest stage of all is that where the prophet receives the divine truth
in the form of pure thought and with complete self-consciousness.
Therefore the Scripture says of Moses and of no other, “The Lord spoke to
Moses face to face, as a man speaks to another.”(77)
5. The story of the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai is in reality the
revelation of God to the people of Israel as part of the great world-drama
of history. Accordingly, the chief emphasis is laid upon the miraculous
element, the descent of the Lord to the mountain in fire and storm, amid
thunder and lightning, while the Ten Words themselves were proclaimed by
Moses as God’s herald.(78) As a matter of fact, the first words of the
narrative state its purpose, the consecration of the Jewish people at the
outset of their history to be a nation of prophets and priests.(79)
Therefore the rabbis lay stress upon the acceptance of the Law by the
people in saying: “All that the Lord sayeth we shall do and hearken.”(80)
From a larger point of view, we see here the dramatized form of the truth
of Israel’s _election_ by divine Providence for its historic religious
mission.
6. The rabbis ascribed the gifts of prophecy to pagans as well as
Israelites at least as late as the erection of the Tabernacle, after which
the Divine Presence dwelt there in the midst of Israel.(81) They say that
each of the Jewish prophets was endowed with a peculiar spiritual power
that corresponded with his character and his special training, the
highest, of course, being Moses, whom they called “the father of the
prophets.”(82)
The medieval Jewish thinkers, following the lead of Mohammedan
philosophers or theologians, regard revelation quite differently, as an
_inner_ process in the mind of the prophet. According to their mystical or
rationalistic viewpoint, they describe it as the result of the divine
spirit, working upon the soul either from within or from without. These
two standpoints betray either the Platonic or the Aristotelian
influence.(83) Indeed, the rabbis themselves showed traces of
neo-Platonism when they described the ecstatic state of the prophets, or
when they spoke of the divine spirit speaking through the prophet as
through a vocal instrument, or when they made distinctions between seeing
the Deity “in a bright mirror” or “through a dark glass.”(84)
The view most remote from the simple one of the Bible is the rationalistic
standpoint of Maimonides, who, following altogether in the footsteps of
the Arabic neo-Aristotelians, assumed that there were different degrees of
prophecy, depending upon the influence exerted upon the human intellect by
the sphere of the Highest Intelligence. He enumerates eleven such grades,
of which Moses had the highest rank, as he entered into direct
communication with the supreme intellectual sphere. Still bolder is his
explanation of the revelation on Sinai. He holds that the first two words
were understood by the people directly as logical evidences of truth, for
they enunciated the philosophical doctrines of the existence and unity of
God, whereas the other words they understood only as sounds without
meaning, so that Moses had to interpret them.(85) In contrast to this
amazing rationalism of Maimonides is the view of Jehuda ha Levi, who
asserts that the gift of prophecy became the specific privilege of the
descendants of Abraham after their consecration as God’s chosen people at
Sinai, and that the holy soil of Palestine was assigned to them as the
habitation best adapted to its exercise.(86) The other attempt of some
rationalistic thinkers of the Middle Ages to have a “sound created for the
purpose”(87) of uttering the words “I am the Lord thy God,” rather than
accepting the anthropomorphic Deity, merits no consideration whatever.
7. It is an indisputable fact of history that the Jewish people, on
account of its peculiar religious bent, was predestined to be the people
of revelation. Its leading spirits, its prophets and psalmists, its
law-givers and inspired writers differ from the seers, singers, and sages
of other nations by their unique and profound insight into the moral
nature of the Deity. In striking contrast is the progress of thought in
Greece, where the awakening of the ethical consciousness caused a rupture
between the culture of the philosophers and the popular religion, and led
to a final decay of the political and social life. The prophets of Israel,
however, the typical men of genius of their people, gradually brought
about an advance of popular religion, so that they could finally present
as their highest ideal the God of the fathers, and make the knowledge of
His will the foundation of the law of holiness, by which they desired to
regulate the entire conduct of man. Thus, religion was no longer confined
by the limits of nationality, but was transformed into a spiritual force
for all mankind, to lead through a revelation of the One and Holy God
toward the highest morality.
8. The development of thought brought the God-seeking spirits to the
desire to know His will, or, in Scriptural language, His ways, in order to
attain holiness in their pursuit. The natural consequence was the gradual
receding of the power of imagination which had made the enraptured seer
behold God Himself in visions. As the Deity rose more and more above the
realm of the visible, the newly conceived truth was realized as coming to
the sacred writer through the spirit of God or an angel. _Inspiration_
took the place of _revelation_. This, however, still implies a passive
attitude of the soul carried away by the truth it receives from on high.
This supernatural element disappears gradually and passes over into sober,
self-conscious thought, in which the writer no longer thinks of God as the
Ego speaking through him, but as an outside Power spoken of in the third
person.
A still lower degree of inspiration is represented by those writings which
lack altogether the divine afflatus, and to which is ascribed a share of
the holy spirit only through general consensus of opinion. Often this
imprint of the divine is not found in them by the calm judgment of a later
generation, and the exact basis for the classification of such writings
among the holy books is sometimes difficult to state. We can only conclude
that in the course of time they were regarded as holy by that very spirit
which was embodied in the Synagogue and its founders, “the Men of the
Great Synagogue,” who in their work of canonizing the Sacred Scriptures
were believed to have been under the influence of the holy spirit.(88)
9. Except for the five books of Moses, the idea of a mechanical
inspiration of the Bible is quite foreign to Judaism. Not until the second
Christian century did the rabbis finally decide on such questions as the
inspiration of certain books among the Hagiographa or even among the
Prophets, or whether certain books now excluded from the canon were not of
equal rank with the canonical ones.(89) In fact, the influence of the holy
spirit was for some time ascribed, not only to Biblical writers, but also
to living masters of the law.(90) The fact is that divine influence cannot
be measured by the yardstick or the calendar. Where it is felt, it bursts
forth as from a higher world, creating for itself its proper organs and
forms. The rabbis portray God as saying to Israel, “Not I in My higher
realm, but you with your human needs fix the form, the measure, the time,
and the mode of expression for that which is divine.”(91)
10. While Christianity and Islam, its daughter-religions, must admit the
existence of a prior revelation, Judaism knows of none. It claims its own
prophetic truth as _the_ revelation, admits the title Books of Revelation
(Bible) only for its own sacred writings, and calls the Jewish nation
alone the People of Revelation. The Church and the Mosque achieved great
things in propagating the truths of the Sinaitic revelation among the
nations, but added to it no new truths of an essential nature. Indeed,
they rather obscured the doctrines of God’s unity and holiness. On the
other hand, the people of the Sinaitic revelation looked to it with a view
of ever revitalizing the dead letter, thus evolving ever new rules of life
and new ideas, without ever placing new and old in opposition, as was done
by the founder of the Church. Each generation was to take to heart the
words of Scripture as if they had come “this very day” out of the mouth of
the Lord.(92)