유란시아 책
III 부. 유란시아의 역사
Paper 97
Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews
Evolution of the God Concept Among the Hebrews
97:0.1 (1062.1)
THE spiritual leaders of the Hebrews did what no others before them had ever succeeded in doing—they deanthropomorphized their God concept without converting it into an abstraction of Deity comprehensible only to philosophers. Even common people were able to regard the matured concept of Yahweh as a Father, if not of the individual, at least of the race.
멜기세덱 시대에 살렘에서 하나님의 인격 개념을 분명히 가르쳤지만, 이 개념은 이집트에서 탈출하던 시대에는 모호하고 불분명했으며, 영적 지도자들의 가르침에 반응하여, 히브리인 정신에서 대대로 겨우 차츰차츰 진화했을 뿐이다. 야훼의 인격을 감지한 것은, 그 점진적 진화에서 신격의 여러 다른 속성을 감지한 것보다 훨씬 더 연속적으로 이뤄졌다. 모세로부터 말라기에 이르기까지, 히브리인의 정신 속에서 하나님의 인격에 대한 관념화{觀念化}는 거의 끊임없이 성장했으며, 이 개념은 결국, 하늘에 계신 아버지에 관한 예수의 교훈으로 인해 강화되고 찬미됐다.
97:0.2 (1062.2)
The concept of the personality of God, while clearly taught at Salem in the days of Melchizedek, was vague and hazy at the time of the flight from Egypt and only gradually evolved in the Hebraic mind from generation to generation in response to the teaching of the spiritual leaders. The perception of Yahweh’s personality was much more continuous in its progressive evolution than was that of many other of the Deity attributes. From Moses to Malachi there occurred an almost unbroken ideational growth of the personality of God in the Hebrew mind, and this concept was eventually heightened and glorified by the teachings of Jesus about the Father in heaven.
97:1.1 (1062.3)
Hostile pressure of the surrounding peoples in Palestine soon taught the Hebrew sheiks they could not hope to survive unless they confederated their tribal organizations into a centralized government. And this centralization of administrative authority afforded a better opportunity for Samuel to function as a teacher and reformer.
사무엘은, 멜기세덱의 진리를 경배 형태의 일부로서 계속 유지시켜왔던, 살렘 선생들의 오래된 가계{家系} 출신이었다. 이 선생은 씩씩하고 단호한 사람이었다. 모세 시대에 믿었던 최고 야훼를 경배하도록 온 이스라엘족속을 돌아서게 만들기 시작했을 때, 사무엘은 거의 전반적인 저항에 부딪치게 됐고, 비범한 결단력과 함께, 오직 그의 숭고한 헌신만이 그 저항을 견딜 수 있게 했다. 그때에도 그는 단지 부분적 성공을 거뒀을 뿐이며;더 높은 야훼 개념을 섬기도록, 히브리인 가운데서 비교적 더 지성적인 절반만을 설득할 수 있었으며;나머지 절반은 그 고장의 부족 신들을 숭배하면서, 열등한 야훼 개념에 계속 머물러 있었다.
97:1.2 (1062.4)
Samuel sprang from a long line of the Salem teachers who had persisted in maintaining the truths of Melchizedek as a part of their worship forms. This teacher was a virile and resolute man. Only his great devotion, coupled with his extraordinary determination, enabled him to withstand the almost universal opposition which he encountered when he started out to turn all Israel back to the worship of the supreme Yahweh of Mosaic times. And even then he was only partially successful; he won back to the service of the higher concept of Yahweh only the more intelligent half of the Hebrews; the other half continued in the worship of the tribal gods of the country and in the baser conception of Yahweh.
97:1.3 (1062.5)
Samuel was a rough-and-ready type of man, a practical reformer who could go out in one day with his associates and overthrow a score of Baal sites. The progress he made was by sheer force of compulsion; he did little preaching, less teaching, but he did act. One day he was mocking the priest of Baal; the next, chopping in pieces a captive king. He devotedly believed in the one God, and he had a clear concept of that one God as creator of heaven and earth: “The pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, and he has set the world upon them.”
그러나 사무엘이 신격 개념의 발전에 크게 이바지한 것은, 야훼가 변함없다는, 틀림없는 완벽성과 신성을 항상 동일하게 구현한다는, 우렁찬 선언이었다. 이 시대에 야훼는, 질투심으로 변덕스러운, 이리저리 행했던 것을 항상 후회하는 하나님으로 생각됐으나;이제는 히브리인이 이집트에서 빠져나온 후 처음으로:“이스라엘의 능력자는 거짓말하지 않고 후회하지도 않으시는데, 후회할 수밖에 없는 사람이 아니기 때문이라”는 놀라운 말을 듣게 됐다. 신성{神性}과 나누는 교제는 변치 않는다고 선포했다. 사무엘은 멜기세덱이 아브라함과 맺었던 언약을 되풀이해서 말했고, 이스라엘의 주 하나님이, 모든 진리와 안정성과 불변성의 근원이라고 선언했다. 히브리인은 자신들의 하나님을 어떤 사람, 즉 알지 못하는 기원을 갖는 고귀한 영{靈}인 어떤 초인간이라고 항상 간주해왔으나;이제 그들은, 옛 호렙의 영이 창조자의 완벽함을 갖춘 변치 않는 하나님으로 높아졌음을 듣게 됐다. 사무엘은, 진화하는 하나님 개념이, 변덕스런 사람의 정신과 필사자 실존의 변천을 뛰어넘는 높은 곳으로 상승하도록 돕고 있었다. 그의 가르침 아래서, 히브리인의 하나님은 부족 신들과 비슷한 개념으로부터, 전능하고 변함없는 창조주요 모든 피조물의 감독관이라는 이상으로 상승하기 시작했다.
97:1.4 (1063.1)
But the great contribution which Samuel made to the development of the concept of Deity was his ringing pronouncement that Yahweh was changeless, forever the same embodiment of unerring perfection and divinity. In these times Yahweh was conceived to be a fitful God of jealous whims, always regretting that he had done thus and so; but now, for the first time since the Hebrews sallied forth from Egypt, they heard these startling words, “The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for he is not a man, that he should repent.” Stability in dealing with Divinity was proclaimed. Samuel reiterated the Melchizedek covenant with Abraham and declared that the Lord God of Israel was the source of all truth, stability, and constancy. Always had the Hebrews looked upon their God as a man, a superman, an exalted spirit of unknown origin; but now they heard the onetime spirit of Horeb exalted as an unchanging God of creator perfection. Samuel was aiding the evolving God concept to ascend to heights above the changing state of men’s minds and the vicissitudes of mortal existence. Under his teaching, the God of the Hebrews was beginning the ascent from an idea on the order of the tribal gods to the ideal of an all-powerful and changeless Creator and Supervisor of all creation.
97:1.5 (1063.2)
And he preached anew the story of God’s sincerity, his covenant-keeping reliability. Said Samuel: “The Lord will not forsake his people.” “He has made with us an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure.” And so, throughout all Palestine there sounded the call back to the worship of the supreme Yahweh. Ever this energetic teacher proclaimed, “You are great, O Lord God, for there is none like you, neither is there any God beside you.”
그러므로 히브리인은, 주로 물질 번영의 의미에서 야훼의 은혜를 생각했다. “주께서 부유하게 하고 가난하게도 하시며;낮추기도 하고 높이기도 하신다. 가난한 자를 굴욕에서 이끌어 올리시고, 구걸하는 자를 높이 들어 왕자들과 함께 있게 해서, 그들로 영광의 왕권을 상속받게 하신다”고 사무엘이 감히 선언했을 때, 이는 이스라엘족속에게 엄청난 충격을 줬고, 사무엘은 거의 목숨을 잃을 뻔 했다. 모세 이후로는, 초라하고 행운이 덜 따라온 사람에게 그런 위로의 약속이 선포된 적이 없었고, 가난한 자들 가운데 절망하던 많은 사람이, 자신의 영적 상태를 개선할 수 있다는 희망을 갖기 시작했다.
97:1.6 (1063.3)
Theretofore the Hebrews had regarded the favor of Yahweh mainly in terms of material prosperity. It was a great shock to Israel, and almost cost Samuel his life, when he dared to proclaim: “The Lord enriches and impoverishes; he debases and exalts. He raises the poor out of the dust and lifts up the beggars to set them among princes to make them inherit the throne of glory.” Not since Moses had such comforting promises for the humble and the less fortunate been proclaimed, and thousands of despairing among the poor began to take hope that they could improve their spiritual status.
97:1.7 (1063.4)
But Samuel did not progress very far beyond the concept of a tribal god. He proclaimed a Yahweh who made all men but was occupied chiefly with the Hebrews, his chosen people. Even so, as in the days of Moses, once more the God concept portrayed a Deity who is holy and upright. “There is none as holy as the Lord. Who can be compared to this holy Lord God?”
여러 해가 지나면서, 백발의 늙은 지도자는 하나님을 이해하는 데서 진보했는데, 이렇게 선언했기 때문이다:“주는 지식의 하나님이요, 행위를 저울에 달아서 재신다. 주께서는 이 세상 종말을 심판하시고, 자비로운 자에게는 자비를 보이시고, 정당한 사람에게는 그분 역시 정당하게 대하실 것이다.” 여기서 자비의 빛이 밝아오더라도, 그것은 자비로운 자에게만 해당된다. 나중에는 한 걸음 더 발전했는데, 자기 민족이 역경에 처하자 그들에게 이렇게 훈계했다:“주의 자비가 크시니, 이제 우리 모두 그의 손에 의뢰하자.” “많이 구원하시든지 적게 구원하시든지, 주를 속박할 것이 아무 것도 없다.”
97:1.8 (1063.5)
As the years passed, the grizzled old leader progressed in the understanding of God, for he declared: “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and actions are weighed by him. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth, showing mercy to the merciful, and with the upright man he will also be upright.” Even here is the dawn of mercy, albeit it is limited to those who are merciful. Later he went one step further when, in their adversity, he exhorted his people: “Let us fall now into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great.” “There is no restraint upon the Lord to save many or few.”
97:1.9 (1063.6)
And this gradual development of the concept of the character of Yahweh continued under the ministry of Samuel’s successors. They attempted to present Yahweh as a covenant-keeping God but hardly maintained the pace set by Samuel; they failed to develop the idea of the mercy of God as Samuel had later conceived it. There was a steady drift back toward the recognition of other gods, despite the maintenance that Yahweh was above all. “Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”
97:1.10 (1064.1)
The keynote of this era was divine power; the prophets of this age preached a religion designed to foster the king upon the Hebrew throne. “Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty. In your hand is power and might, and you are able to make great and to give strength to all.” And this was the status of the God concept during the time of Samuel and his immediate successors.
기원전 10세기경에 히브리 민족은 두 왕국으로 갈라졌다. 이렇게 정치적으로 나뉜 두 나라 모두, 분단으로 인한 전쟁 이후에도 비참하게 계속되고 이미 확립된, 영적 퇴폐의 복고적{復古的} 물결을 저지하려고, 진리를 가르치는 많은 선생이 수고했다. 그러나 히브리 종교를 발전시키려는 이 수고는, 정의를 향해서 단호하고 대담한 전사{戰士}였던 엘리야가 가르침을 시작하기 전에는 성공하지 못했다. 엘리야는, 사무엘 시대에 필적할만한 하나님 개념을 북왕국에 부활시켰다. 엘리야는, 진보된 하나님 개념을 제시할 기회를 거의 갖지 못했으며;그보다 먼저 있었던 사무엘처럼, 그 역시 가짜 신들의 우상을 파괴하고 바알 제단들을 뒤집어엎기 바빴다. 그리고 그는, 우상을 섬기는 군주의 반대를 무릅쓰고 개혁을 계속 밀고 나갔으며;그의 과제는 사무엘이 부닥쳤던 것보다 훨씬 크고 어려웠다.
97:2.1 (1064.2)
In the tenth century before Christ the Hebrew nation became divided into two kingdoms. In both of these political divisions many truth teachers endeavored to stem the reactionary tide of spiritual decadence that had set in, and which continued disastrously after the war of separation. But these efforts to advance the Hebraic religion did not prosper until that determined and fearless warrior for righteousness, Elijah, began his teaching. Elijah restored to the northern kingdom a concept of God comparable with that held in the days of Samuel. Elijah had little opportunity to present an advanced concept of God; he was kept busy, as Samuel had been before him, overthrowing the altars of Baal and demolishing the idols of false gods. And he carried forward his reforms in the face of the opposition of an idolatrous monarch; his task was even more gigantic and difficult than that which Samuel had faced.
97:2.3 (1064.4)
But these were not times of progress in the concept of Deity. Not yet had the Hebrews ascended even to the Mosaic ideal. The era of Elijah and Elisha closed with the better classes returning to the worship of the supreme Yahweh and witnessed the restoration of the idea of the Universal Creator to about that place where Samuel had left it.
97:3.2 (1064.6)
The inhabitants of Palestine differed in their attitude toward private ownership of land. The southern or wandering Arabian tribes (the Yahwehites) looked upon land as an inalienable—as a gift of Deity to the clan. They held that land could not be sold or mortgaged. “Yahweh spoke, saying, ‘The land shall not be sold, for the land is mine.’”
97:3.3 (1064.7)
The northern and more settled Canaanites (the Baalites) freely bought, sold, and mortgaged their lands. The word Baal means owner. The Baal cult was founded on two major doctrines: First, the validation of property exchange, contracts, and covenants—the right to buy and sell land. Second, Baal was supposed to send rain—he was a god of fertility of the soil. Good crops depended on the favor of Baal. The cult was largely concerned with land, its ownership and fertility.
97:3.5 (1065.2)
Out of this basic difference in the regard for land, there evolved the bitter antagonisms of social, economic, moral, and religious attitudes exhibited by the Canaanites and the Hebrews. This socioeconomic controversy did not become a definite religious issue until the times of Elijah. From the days of this aggressive prophet the issue was fought out on more strictly religious lines—Yahweh vs. Baal—and it ended in the triumph of Yahweh and the subsequent drive toward monotheism.
엘리야는, 야훼-바알 갈등을 땅 문제로부터 히브리인과 가나안족속 관념의 종교적 측면으로 전환시켰다. 아합 왕이 나봇 가문의 땅을 차지할 음모를 꾸며서 그들을 죽였을 때, 엘리야는 땅과 관계되는 옛 사회관행에 의거하여 도덕적 문제를 제기했고, 바알 숭배자들에게 대항하는 격렬한 운동을 시작했다. 또한 이것은, 도시인의 지배에 항거하는 시골 사람들의 투쟁이기도 했다. 야훼가 엘로힘이 된 것은, 주로 엘리야로 인해 이뤄졌다. 이 선지자는, 토지 개혁자로서 출발하여 신격을 찬양함으로 끝을 맺었다. 바알은 숫자가 많았으나 야훼는 하나였다--일신교가 다신교를 이겼다.
97:3.6 (1065.3)
Elijah shifted the Yahweh-Baal controversy from the land issue to the religious aspect of Hebrew and Canaanite ideologies. When Ahab murdered the Naboths in the intrigue to get possession of their land, Elijah made a moral issue out of the olden land mores and launched his vigorous campaign against the Baalites. This was also a fight of the country folk against domination by the cities. It was chiefly under Elijah that Yahweh became Elohim. The prophet began as an agrarian reformer and ended up by exalting Deity. Baals were many, Yahweh was one—monotheism won over polytheism.
97:4.1 (1065.4)
A great step in the transition of the tribal god—the god who had so long been served with sacrifices and ceremonies, the Yahweh of the earlier Hebrews—to a God who would punish crime and immorality among even his own people, was taken by Amos, who appeared from among the southern hills to denounce the criminality, drunkenness, oppression, and immorality of the northern tribes. Not since the times of Moses had such ringing truths been proclaimed in Palestine.
아모스는 단순히 원상복귀하거나 개혁을 일으킨 사람이 아니었으며;새로운 신격 개념을 발견한 사람이었다. 그는 선조가 공표했던 하나님에 관해서 많은 것을 전파했고, 소위 선택받은 민족 가운데 있는 죄를 묵인하리라는 신성한 존재에 대한 믿음을 용감하게 공격했다. 멜기세덱 시대 이후 처음으로, 사람들은 국가적 공의와 도덕성이라는 이중 기준이 선언되는 것을 들었다. 역사상 처음으로, 히브리인은 바로 그들의 하나님 야훼가, 그들의 삶에서 생기는 범죄와 죄를, 어떤 다른 민족의 경우보다 더 너그럽게 봐주지 않는다는 소리를 들었다. 아모스는 사무엘과 엘리야의 엄격하고 정확한 하나님을 상상했지만, 또한 잘못에 대해서 응징할 때, 히브리인도 모든 다른 나라와 똑같이 취급하는 하나님이심을 알았다. 이것은 자기본위적인 “선민” 교리에 대한 정면 공격이었고, 그 당시 많은 히브리인이 이를 통렬히 비난했다.
97:4.2 (1065.5)
Amos was not merely a restorer or reformer; he was a discoverer of new concepts of Deity. He proclaimed much about God that had been announced by his predecessors and courageously attacked the belief in a Divine Being who would countenance sin among his so-called chosen people. For the first time since the days of Melchizedek the ears of man heard the denunciation of the double standard of national justice and morality. For the first time in their history Hebrew ears heard that their own God, Yahweh, would no more tolerate crime and sin in their lives than he would among any other people. Amos envisioned the stern and just God of Samuel and Elijah, but he also saw a God who thought no differently of the Hebrews than of any other nation when it came to the punishment of wrongdoing. This was a direct attack on the egoistic doctrine of the “chosen people,” and many Hebrews of those days bitterly resented it.
아모스가 말했다:“산을 만들고 바람을 일으키신 이, 일곱 별과 오리온을 지으신 분을 찾으라, 그는 죽음의 그림자를 바꿔서 아침이 되게 하고, 낮을 어두운 밤으로 만드신다.” 그는, 건성으로-종교를-믿고 기회주의적이고 때로는 부도덕한 동료들을 비난하는 한편, 변치 않는 야훼의 어김없는 응보를 묘사하려고 애쓰면서 행악자들에게 말했다:“저희가 음부에 파묻혀도 내가 거기서 저희를 취할 것이며;저희가 하늘로 올라가도 내가 거기서 저희를 끌어내릴 것이다.” “그리고 적군 앞에서 포로가 돼도, 내가 거기서 응보의 칼을 휘두를 것이고, 그 칼이 저희를 무찌를 것이다.” 비난하고 책망하는 손짓으로 그들을 가리키면서:“너희가 행한 것을 내가 결코 잊지 않을 것이다.” “그리고 곡식을 체질하는 것처럼, 나는 이스라엘 집을 모든 나라 가운데서 체질할 것이라”고 야훼 이름으로 선포했을 때, 아모스는 청중들을 더욱 놀라게 했다.
97:4.3 (1065.6)
Said Amos: “He who formed the mountains and created the wind, seek him who formed the seven stars and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into the morning and makes the day dark as night.” And in denouncing his half-religious, timeserving, and sometimes immoral fellows, he sought to portray the inexorable justice of an unchanging Yahweh when he said of the evildoers: “Though they dig into hell, thence shall I take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.” “And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I direct the sword of justice, and it shall slay them.” Amos further startled his hearers when, pointing a reproving and accusing finger at them, he declared in the name of Yahweh: “Surely I will never forget any of your works.” “And I will sift the house of Israel among all nations as wheat is sifted in a sieve.”
97:4.4 (1066.1)
Amos proclaimed Yahweh the “God of all nations” and warned the Israelites that ritual must not take the place of righteousness. And before this courageous teacher was stoned to death, he had spread enough leaven of truth to save the doctrine of the supreme Yahweh; he had insured the further evolution of the Melchizedek revelation.
97:4.5 (1066.2)
Hosea followed Amos and his doctrine of a universal God of justice by the resurrection of the Mosaic concept of a God of love. Hosea preached forgiveness through repentance, not by sacrifice. He proclaimed a gospel of loving-kindness and divine mercy, saying: “I will betroth you to me forever; yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and judgment and in loving-kindness and in mercies. I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness.” “I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away.”
호세아는, 아모스의 도덕적 경고를 충실히 계속 전하면서 하나님에 대하여 말했다:“그들을 체벌하는 것이 내가 바라는 바다.” 그러나, “내 민족이 아니었던 그들에게 ‘너희는 내 민족’이라고 말할 것이며;저희는 ‘당신이 우리 하나님이십니다’라고 대답할 것이라”고 그가 말했을 때, 이스라엘족속은 그것을 반역에 해당할 만큼 잔인한 것으로 여겼다. 그는 회개와 용서를 계속 전파하면서 말했다:“내가 그들의 타락을 고칠 것이며;내 분노가 사라졌으니, 저희를 아낌없이 사랑하리라.” 호세아는 항상 희망과 용서를 선포했다. 그 메시지의 요지는 늘 이랬다:“내가 내 민족에게 자비를 베풀리라. 나 외에는 구원자가 없으리니, 저희는 나만을 하나님으로 알게 되리라.”
97:4.6 (1066.3)
Hosea faithfully continued the moral warnings of Amos, saying of God, “It is my desire that I chastise them.” But the Israelites regarded it as cruelty bordering on treason when he said: “I will say to those who were not my people, ‘you are my people’; and they will say, ‘you are our God.’” He continued to preach repentance and forgiveness, saying, “I will heal their backsliding; I will love them freely, for my anger is turned away.” Always Hosea proclaimed hope and forgiveness. The burden of his message ever was: “I will have mercy upon my people. They shall know no God but me, for there is no savior beside me.”
97:4.7 (1066.4)
Amos quickened the national conscience of the Hebrews to the recognition that Yahweh would not condone crime and sin among them because they were supposedly the chosen people, while Hosea struck the opening notes in the later merciful chords of divine compassion and loving-kindness which were so exquisitely sung by Isaiah and his associates.
97:5.1 (1066.5)
These were the times when some were proclaiming threatenings of punishment against personal sins and national crime among the northern clans while others predicted calamity in retribution for the transgressions of the southern kingdom. It was in the wake of this arousal of conscience and consciousness in the Hebrew nations that the first Isaiah made his appearance.
이사야는, 하나님의 영원한 본성 곧 무한한 지혜, 변함없이 완벽한 신빙성을 계속 전파했다. 그는 이스라엘의 하나님이 이렇게 말씀한다고 묘사했다:“또한 내가 심판으로 저울의 줄을 삼고, 정의로 추를 삼을 것이다.” “너희의 슬픔과 두려움에서, 너희가 수고하는 고된 속박의 처지에서 벗어나도록, 주께서 휴식을 주실 것이다.” “그리고 너희 귀는 너희 뒤에서 울리는, ‘이것이 그 길이니, 이 길로 걸으라’는 말을 듣게 되리라.” “보라, 하나님은 나의 구원이시며;주는 나의 힘이요 찬송이시니, 내가 믿고 두려워하지 않으리라.” “주께서, ‘지금 와서 함께 따져보자, 너희 죄가 붉을지라도, 눈처럼 희어질 것이며;피같이 붉을지라도, 양털처럼 희어질 것이라’고 말씀하신다.”
97:5.2 (1066.6)
Isaiah went on to preach the eternal nature of God, his infinite wisdom, his unchanging perfection of reliability. He represented the God of Israel as saying: “Judgment also will I lay to the line and righteousness to the plummet.” “The Lord will give you rest from your sorrow and from your fear and from the hard bondage wherein man has been made to serve.” “And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘this is the way, walk in it.’” “Behold God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song.” “‘Come now and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like the crimson, they shall be as wool.’”
두려움에-지배되고 혼이-갈급한 히브리인에게 이 선지자가 말했다:“일어나서 빛을 발하라, 너희의 빛이 임했고, 주의 영광이 너희에게 임하셨으니.” “온유한 자에게 기쁜소식을 전파하도록 그가 나에게 기름을 부으셨으므로, 주의 영이 나에게 임하시며;그는 마음이 상한 자를 싸매 주기 위해서, 즉 포로 된 자에게는 자유를, 묶인 자에게는 옥문이 열렸음을 선포하라고 나를 보내셨다.” “주께서 구원의 옷으로 나에게 입히시고, 정의의 외투로 나를 가리셨으니, 나는 주를 대단히 크게 기뻐하고, 내 영혼은 내 하나님을 즐거워할 것이다.” “저희의 모든 고통 속에서 그가 고통 당하셨고, 그의 앞에 있던 천사가 저희를 구했다. 그가 사랑과 연민으로 저희를 구하셨다.”
97:5.3 (1066.7)
Speaking to the fear-ridden and soul-hungry Hebrews, this prophet said: “Arise and shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God, for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and has covered me with his robe of righteousness.” “In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity he redeemed them.”
97:5.5 (1067.2)
Micah denounced “the rulers who judge for reward and the priests who teach for hire and the prophets who divine for money.” He taught of a day of freedom from superstition and priestcraft, saying: “But every man shall sit under his own vine, and no one shall make him afraid, for all people will live, each one according to his understanding of God.”
미가의 메시지의 요지는 늘 이랬다:“내가 번제물을 갖고 하나님 앞으로 올 것인가? 주께서 천 마리의 숫양과 큰 강물 같은 기름으로 기뻐하실까? 내 범죄 대신 내 첫 태생을, 내 혼의 죄 대신 내 육체의 열매를 바칠 것인가? 오 사람아, 그가 무엇이 선한지 나에게 보이셨으니;정당하게 행하고 자비를 사랑하고, 겸손하게 너희 하나님과 함께 걸어가는 것 외에, 주께서 너희에게 무엇을 요구하시느냐?” 이때는 위대한 시대였으며;정말로 감동적인 시대였는데, 2,500년보다 더 전에, 필사적 사람은 그런 해방시키는 메시지를 들었고 더러는 믿었다. 제사장들의 완고한 저항이 없었다면, 이 선생들은 히브리인의 경배 제례식에서 피 흘리는 예식절차 전체를 폐지시켰을 것이다.
97:5.6 (1067.3)
Ever the burden of Micah’s message was: “Shall I come before God with burnt offerings? Will the Lord be pleased with a thousand rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown me, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?” And it was a great age; these were indeed stirring times when mortal man heard, and some even believed, such emancipating messages more than two and a half millenniums ago. And but for the stubborn resistance of the priests, these teachers would have overthrown the whole bloody ceremonial of the Hebrew ritual of worship.
예레미야는, 다른 나라들과 전쟁할 때 야훼가 히브리인 편만 드는 것이 아니라고, 대담하게 선언했다. 야훼가 온 땅의 하나님 곧 모든 나라와 모든 민족의 하나님이라고 주장했다. 예레미야의 가르침은, 이스라엘의 하나님을 국제화하는, 상승하는 파도를 점점 강하게 만드는 것이었으며;대담한 이 전도자는, 야훼가 모든 나라의 하나님이시고, 이집트인을 위한 오시리스, 바벨론인을 위한 벨, 앗수르인을 위한 아쉬르, 또는 블레셋족속을 위한 다곤은 존재하지 않는다고, 마침내 영구히 선포했다. 그리하여 히브리인 종교는, 이 시대 무렵과 그후에, 일신교의 부흥을 온 세상에 나눠주게 됐으며;마침내 야훼 개념은 행성의 신격 수준으로, 심지어 시공우주의 위엄을 갖추는 수준까지 상승했다. 그러나 예레미야의 동역자 중에서 많은 사람은, 히브리인 나라를 배제한 야훼를 생각하기 힘들었다.
97:6.2 (1067.5)
Jeremiah fearlessly declared that Yahweh was not on the side of the Hebrews in their military struggles with other nations. He asserted that Yahweh was God of all the earth, of all nations and of all peoples. Jeremiah’s teaching was the crescendo of the rising wave of the internationalization of the God of Israel; finally and forever did this intrepid preacher proclaim that Yahweh was God of all nations, and that there was no Osiris for the Egyptians, Bel for the Babylonians, Ashur for the Assyrians, or Dagon for the Philistines. And thus did the religion of the Hebrews share in that renaissance of monotheism throughout the world at about and following this time; at last the concept of Yahweh had ascended to a Deity level of planetary and even cosmic dignity. But many of Jeremiah’s associates found it difficult to conceive of Yahweh apart from the Hebrew nation.
97:6.4 (1067.7)
Said this fearless prophet: “Righteous is our Lord, great in counsel and mighty in work. His eyes are open upon all the ways of all the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his doings.” But it was considered blasphemous treason when, during the siege of Jerusalem, he said: “And now have I given these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant.” And when Jeremiah counseled the surrender of the city, the priests and civil rulers cast him into the miry pit of a dismal dungeon.
히브리인의 나라가 멸망하고 그들이 메소포타미아에서 포로 생활을 한 것은, 그 사제계층의 단호한 행동만 없었다면 그들의 확장되는 신학에 크게 유익함이 입증됐을 것이다. 그들의 나라는 바벨론의 군대 앞에서 무너졌고, 그들 민족을 두둔하던 야훼는 영적 지도자들의 지루한 국제적 설교로 시달렸다. 자기 민족 신{神}을 잃은 것에 대한 노여움 때문에, 국제화된 만국의 하나님이라는 새롭고 확대된 개념에도 불구하고, 유대인 제사장들은 유대인을 선민{選民}으로 재건시키려는 의도로, 히브리인 역사상에서 그토록 장황한 전설을 꾸며내고, 기적적인 것 같은 사건들을 여러 배로 부풀리게 됐다.
97:7.1 (1068.1)
The destruction of the Hebrew nation and their captivity in Mesopotamia would have proved of great benefit to their expanding theology had it not been for the determined action of their priesthood. Their nation had fallen before the armies of Babylon, and their nationalistic Yahweh had suffered from the international preachments of the spiritual leaders. It was resentment of the loss of their national god that led the Jewish priests to go to such lengths in the invention of fables and the multiplication of miraculous appearing events in Hebrew history in an effort to restore the Jews as the chosen people of even the new and expanded idea of an internationalized God of all nations.
97:7.2 (1068.2)
During the captivity the Jews were much influenced by Babylonian traditions and legends, although it should be noted that they unfailingly improved the moral tone and spiritual significance of the Chaldean stories which they adopted, notwithstanding that they invariably distorted these legends to reflect honor and glory upon the ancestry and history of Israel.
이 히브리인 제사장과 서기관들은, 마음 속에 오직 한 가지 생각밖에 없었는데, 유대 나라의 회복, 즉 히브리 전통을 영화롭게 하고, 종족의 역사를 찬미하는 것이었다. 이 제사장들이 자신들의 잘못된 개념을 서양 세계의 그토록 넓은 지역에 심었다는 사실에 노여움이 솟구친다면, 그들이 이 일을 고의로 하지 않았다는 것을 기억해야하며;그들은 영감을 받아 기록했다고 주장하지 않았으며;신성시되는 책을 쓰겠다고 공언하지도 않았다. 그들은 다만, 포로 생활을 하던 동료들의 저하된 용기를 북돋우도록 고안한 교과서를 준비했을 뿐이다. 그들은 동포의 민족정신과 사기 증진을 분명한 목표로 삼았다. 후대의 사람들이 이것과 기타 문헌들을 모아서, 마치 오류가 없는 교훈이라도 되는 듯이 생각할만한 지침서를 만들게 됐다.
97:7.3 (1068.3)
These Hebrew priests and scribes had a single idea in their minds, and that was the rehabilitation of the Jewish nation, the glorification of Hebrew traditions, and the exaltation of their racial history. If there is resentment of the fact that these priests have fastened their erroneous ideas upon such a large part of the Occidental world, it should be remembered that they did not intentionally do this; they did not claim to be writing by inspiration; they made no profession to be writing a sacred book. They were merely preparing a textbook designed to bolster up the dwindling courage of their fellows in captivity. They were definitely aiming at improving the national spirit and morale of their compatriots. It remained for later-day men to assemble these and other writings into a guide book of supposedly infallible teachings.
유대인 사제들은 포로 생활이 끝난 뒤에 이 문헌을 아낌없이 이용해먹었으나, 제1 이사야가 외친 응보와 사랑과 정의 및 자비의 하나님께로 온전히 전향한 불굴의 젊은 제2 이사야가 나타남으로써, 동료 포로들에게 영향을 미치는 데 크게 훼방 받았다. 그는 또한, 야훼가 모든 나라의 하나님이 되셨다는 예레미야와 동일한 생각을 가졌다. 그는 유대인뿐 아니라 그들을 포로로 잡은 사람 가운데서도 똑같이 개종자를 만드는 효력을 나타내는 그런 말을 하면서, 하나님의 본성에 대한 이 이론을 전파했다. 그리고 이 젊은 전도자는 자신의 교훈을 기록으로 남겼는데, 적대적이고 앙심품은 제사장들은, 이 교훈이 제1 이사야와 전혀 상관없는 것처럼 만들려고 했으나, 그 아름다움과 장엄함을 순전히 존경하는 마음으로, 이 기록을 제1 이사야가 쓴 작품 사이에 집어넣게 됐다. 그리하여 제2 이사야의 작품은 그 이름을 지닌 책에서 발견될 수 있으며, 40장부터 55장 끝까지가 포함된다.
97:7.4 (1068.4)
The Jewish priesthood made liberal use of these writings subsequent to the captivity, but they were greatly hindered in their influence over their fellow captives by the presence of a young and indomitable prophet, Isaiah the second, who was a full convert to the elder Isaiah’s God of justice, love, righteousness, and mercy. He also believed with Jeremiah that Yahweh had become the God of all nations. He preached these theories of the nature of God with such telling effect that he made converts equally among the Jews and their captors. And this young preacher left on record his teachings, which the hostile and unforgiving priests sought to divorce from all association with him, although sheer respect for their beauty and grandeur led to their incorporation among the writings of the earlier Isaiah. And thus may be found the writings of this second Isaiah in the book of that name, embracing chapters forty to fifty-five inclusive.
97:7.5 (1068.5)
No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa to the time of Jesus attained the high concept of God that Isaiah the second proclaimed during these days of the captivity. It was no small, anthropomorphic, man-made God that this spiritual leader proclaimed. “Behold he takes up the isles as a very little thing.” “And as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”
마키벤타 멜기세덱은, 인간 선생들이 참된 하나님을 필사적 사람에게 전파하는 것을 마침내 보게 됐다. 제1 이사야처럼, 이 지도자는 우주를 창조하고 유지하는 하나님을 전파했다. “내가 땅을 만들었고 사람을 거기에 뒀다. 내가 그것을 헛되게 만들지 않았으며;사람이 살도록 조성했다.” “나는 처음이요 마지막이며;나 외에는 하나님이 없다.” 이스라엘의 주 하나님을 대신하여, 이 새 선지자가 말했다:“하늘들이 사라지고 땅은 죽어갈지라도, 내 의{義}는 영원히 지속되고, 내 구원은 세대마다 지속될 것이다.” “내가 너희와 함께 있으니 두려워하지 말며, 내가 너희의 하나님이니 낙담하지 말라.” “나 외에는, --정확한 하나님이요 구원주인-- 하나님이 없다.
97:7.6 (1069.1)
At last Machiventa Melchizedek beheld human teachers proclaiming a real God to mortal man. Like Isaiah the first, this leader preached a God of universal creation and upholding. “I have made the earth and put man upon it. I have created it not in vain; I formed it to be inhabited.” “I am the first and the last; there is no God beside me.” Speaking for the Lord God of Israel, this new prophet said: “The heavens may vanish and the earth wax old, but my righteousness shall endure forever and my salvation from generation to generation.” “Fear you not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.” “There is no God beside me—a just God and a Savior.”
유대인 포로를 위로하고, 마찬가지로 그후로 허다한 사람들을 늘 위로한 말씀은 이랬다:“그러므로 주께서 ‘내가 너를 창조했고, 너를 되찾았고, 너의 이름으로 너를 불렀으며;너는 내 것이라’고 말씀하신다.” “네가 물을 지나갈 때, 너는 내 앞에 소중한 존재니, 내가 너와 함께 할 것이다.” “여자가 제 자식에게 연민의 정이 없다고 해서, 젖 먹는 자기 아이를 잊을 수 있느냐? 그렇다, 여자는 잊을지라도, 나는 내 자녀를 잊지 않을 것인데, 내가 그들을 내 손바닥에 새겼기 때문이며;내가 내 손의 그늘로 그들을 보호하기까지 했다.” “사악한 자는 자기 길을, 불의한 자는 자기 생각을 버리고 주께로 돌아오게 하라, 그러면 주께서 그에게 자비를 베푸실 것이니, 그를 우리 하나님께로 돌아오게 하라, 그러면 후하게 용서하실 것이다.”
97:7.7 (1069.2)
And it comforted the Jewish captives, as it has thousands upon thousands ever since, to hear such words as: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have created you, I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name; you are mine.’” “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you since you are precious in my sight.” “Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on her son? Yes, she may forget, yet will I not forget my children, for behold I have graven them upon the palms of my hands; I have even covered them with the shadow of my hands.” “Let the wicked forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
97:7.8 (1069.3)
Listen again to the gospel of this new revelation of the God of Salem: “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd; he shall gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom. He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might he increases strength. Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
이 이사야는, 확장되는 최고 야훼 개념의 복음을 멀리까지 전했다. 이스라엘의 주 하나님을 우주의 창조주로 묘사하는 웅변술에서, 그는 모세와 경쟁할 만 했다. 우주 아버지의 무한한 속성을 묘사함에서 그의 글은 시적{詩的}이었다. 하늘 아버지를 이보다 더 아름답게 소개한 적이 없었다. 이사야의 글은, 시편과 마찬가지로, 미가엘이 유란시아에 오시기 전에 필사적 사람이 귀로 들었던, 하나님에 대해 가장 장엄하고 참되게 제시한 영적 개념이었다. 그가 신격을 묘사한 것에 귀를 기울여보자:“나는 영원 속에 거하는 높고 고상한 존재다.” “나는 처음이요 마지막이며, 나 외에 다른 하나님은 없다.” “또한 주의 손이 짧아서 구원하지 못함이 아니요, 귀가 어두워서 듣지 못함도 아니다.” 그리고 인자하지만 당당한 이 선지자가, 신{神}의 불변성 곧 하나님의 신실하심을 끈질기게 훈계한 것은 유대인에게 새로운 교리였다. “하나님은 잊지 않으실 것이며, 버리지 않으실 것이라”고 그가 선언했다.
97:7.9 (1069.4)
This Isaiah conducted a far-flung propaganda of the gospel of the enlarging concept of a supreme Yahweh. He vied with Moses in the eloquence with which he portrayed the Lord God of Israel as the Universal Creator. He was poetic in his portrayal of the infinite attributes of the Universal Father. No more beautiful pronouncements about the heavenly Father have ever been made. Like the Psalms, the writings of Isaiah are among the most sublime and true presentations of the spiritual concept of God ever to greet the ears of mortal man prior to the arrival of Michael on Urantia. Listen to his portrayal of Deity: “I am the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity.” “I am the first and the last, and beside me there is no other God.” “And the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, neither his ear heavy that it cannot hear.” And it was a new doctrine in Jewry when this benign but commanding prophet persisted in the preachment of divine constancy, God’s faithfulness. He declared that “God would not forget, would not forsake.”
97:7.10 (1069.5)
This daring teacher proclaimed that man was very closely related to God, saying: “Every one who is called by my name I have created for my glory, and they shall show forth my praise. I, even I, am he who blots out their transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember their sins.”
이 위대한 히브리인이 민족의 하나님 개념을 무너뜨린다는 소문이 전해지는 동안, 그는 우주 아버지의 신성을 선포했는데, 그분에 대하여, “하늘들은 내 보좌요 땅은 내 발판이라”고 말했다. 그럼에도 이사야의 하나님은 거룩하고 웅대하며 정당하고 불가사의하다. 사막의 베두인족이 가졌던, 화내고 복수심에 불타고 질투하는 야훼 개념은 거의 사라졌다. 보편적인 최고의 새 야훼 개념이 필사적 사람의 정신 속에 나타나게 됐고, 인간의 눈앞에서 결코 사라지지 않게 됐다. 신의 응보를 깨닫는 것이, 원시적 마술과 생물학적 두려움을 제거하기 시작했다. 사람은 마침내 법칙과 질서가 있는 우주를 알게 됐고, 의존할만하고 궁극적인 속성을 지니신 우주의 하나님을 알게 됐다.
97:7.11 (1069.6)
Hear this great Hebrew demolish the concept of a national God while in glory he proclaims the divinity of the Universal Father, of whom he says, “The heavens are my throne, and the earth is my footstool.” And Isaiah’s God was none the less holy, majestic, just, and unsearchable. The concept of the angry, vengeful, and jealous Yahweh of the desert Bedouins has almost vanished. A new concept of the supreme and universal Yahweh has appeared in the mind of mortal man, never to be lost to human view. The realization of divine justice has begun the destruction of primitive magic and biologic fear. At last, man is introduced to a universe of law and order and to a universal God of dependable and final attributes.
숭고한 하나님을 전파한 이 전도자는, 이 사랑의 하나님을 선포하기를 결코 멈추지 않았다. “나는 높고 거룩한 곳에 거하며, 또한 회개하고 겸손한 영혼과 함께 거한다.” 이 위대한 선생은, 동시대 사람에게 위로의 말을 더했다:“그리고 주께서는 너를 계속 인도하고 너의 혼을 만족시키실 것이다. 너는 물 댄 동산 같고 끊임없이 흐르는 샘물 같을 것이다. 그리고 적이 홍수처럼 밀려오면, 주의 영이 그에 맞서서 방어물을 세우실 것이다.” 그리고 두려움을-제거하는 멜기세덱의 복음과, 신용을-조성하는 살렘 종교가, 인류를 축복하기 위하여 다시 한 번 빛을 발했다.
97:7.12 (1070.1)
And this preacher of a supernal God never ceased to proclaim this God of love. “I dwell in the high and holy place, also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit.” And still further words of comfort did this great teacher speak to his contemporaries: “And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your soul. You shall be like a watered garden and like a spring whose waters fail not. And if the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord will lift up a defense against him.” And once again did the fear-destroying gospel of Melchizedek and the trust-breeding religion of Salem shine forth for the blessing of mankind.
97:7.13 (1070.2)
The farseeing and courageous Isaiah effectively eclipsed the nationalistic Yahweh by his sublime portraiture of the majesty and universal omnipotence of the supreme Yahweh, God of love, ruler of the universe, and affectionate Father of all mankind. Ever since those eventful days the highest God concept in the Occident has embraced universal justice, divine mercy, and eternal righteousness. In superb language and with matchless grace this great teacher portrayed the all-powerful Creator as the all-loving Father.
97:7.14 (1070.3)
This prophet of the captivity preached to his people and to those of many nations as they listened by the river in Babylon. And this second Isaiah did much to counteract the many wrong and racially egoistic concepts of the mission of the promised Messiah. But in this effort he was not wholly successful. Had the priests not dedicated themselves to the work of building up a misconceived nationalism, the teachings of the two Isaiahs would have prepared the way for the recognition and reception of the promised Messiah.
히브리인의 체험에 관한 기록을 신성한 역사로 보고, 나머지 세상의 기타 진행사항을 세속 역사로 보려는 관습이, 역사를 해석할 때 인간 정신에 현존하는 대부분의 혼돈을 일으키는 원인이다. 그리고 이런 어려움은, 유대인의 세속 역사가 없기 때문에 발생된다. 바벨론에 유배됐던 제사장들은, 하나님이 히브리인에게 기적적인 조치를 한 것으로 가정되는 새 기록, 즉 구약 성경에 묘사된 신성한 이스라엘 역사라는 새 기록을 준비한 후에, 히브리인 사건들과 관련되는 현존 기록--곧 히브리인 역사에서 다소 정확한 다른 몇몇 기록과 함께, “이스라엘 왕들의 행적”과 “유다 왕들의 행적” 같은 책들--을 신중하게, 그리고 철저하게 없애버렸다.
97:8.1 (1070.4)
The custom of looking upon the record of the experiences of the Hebrews as sacred history and upon the transactions of the rest of the world as profane history is responsible for much of the confusion existing in the human mind as to the interpretation of history. And this difficulty arises because there is no secular history of the Jews. After the priests of the Babylonian exile had prepared their new record of God’s supposedly miraculous dealings with the Hebrews, the sacred history of Israel as portrayed in the Old Testament, they carefully and completely destroyed the existing records of Hebrew affairs—such books as “The Doings of the Kings of Israel” and “The Doings of the Kings of Judah,” together with several other more or less accurate records of Hebrew history.
세속 역사가 지독하게 억압받은 것과 꼼짝 못하고 강요당한 것이, 포로가 되고 외지인의-지배를-받는 유대인을 어떻게 하여 그토록 공포에 빠뜨렸는지, 그래서 자기네 역사를 전면적으로 다시 쓰고 개작하려고 애썼는지 이해하기 위해서, 우리는 그들 민족의 복잡한 체험 기록을 간단히 살펴봐야하겠다. 유대인은, 삶에서 비{非}신학적인 적당한 사상을 발전시키지 못했다는 것을 기억해야한다. 그들은 죄를 지으면 끔찍한 벌을 받고 의로우면 신성한 보상을 받는다는 자신의 원래 개념과 이집트 개념 사이에서 고심하고 있었다. 욥의 이야기는, 이런 잘못된 사상에 이의를 제기하는 것이었다. 전도서의 노골적인 염세주의는, 섭리를 믿는 지나친 이 낙관적 믿음에 대한 현명한 세속적 반응이었다.
97:8.2 (1070.5)
In order to understand how the devastating pressure and the inescapable coercion of secular history so terrorized the captive and alien-ruled Jews that they attempted the complete rewriting and recasting of their history, we should briefly survey the record of their perplexing national experience. It must be remembered that the Jews failed to evolve an adequate nontheologic philosophy of life. They struggled with their original and Egyptian concept of divine rewards for righteousness coupled with dire punishments for sin. The drama of Job was something of a protest against this erroneous philosophy. The frank pessimism of Ecclesiastes was a worldly wise reaction to these overoptimistic beliefs in Providence.
그러나 외지인 통치자가 지배한 500년은, 끈기 있고 오래-참는 유대인에게조차 너무 가혹했다. 선지자와 제사장들이 외치기 시작했다:“오 주여, 언제까지입니까? 어느 때까지입니까?” 경전{經典}을 탐구하는 동안에, 정직한 유대인의 혼돈은 더욱 심해졌다. 어느 옛 선각자는, 하나님이 “선민”을 보호하고 구출하실 것이라고 약속했다. 아모스는, 민족의 정의에 대한 기준을 이스라엘족속이 다시 정립하지 않는다면, 하나님께서 이스라엘족속을 버리실 것이라고 위협했다. 신명기를 기록한 서기관은, --선과 악, 축복과 저주 사이에서 하는-- 중대한 선택을 묘사했다. 제1 이사야는 인정 많은 왕-구원자를 전파했다. 예레미야는 --마음 판에 언약을 새기는-- 내적{內的}정의의 시대를 선포했다. 제2 이사야는, 희생제물을 바치고 속죄함으로 구원을 받는다고 이야기했다. 에스겔은 헌신적 봉사를 통한 구출을 전파했고, 에스라는 율법을 지킴으로써 번영을 이룰 수 있다고 약속했다. 그러나 이 모든 것에도 불구하고, 그들은 계속 노예 상태였고, 구출은 연기됐다. 그때 임박한 “위기”라는--곧 큰 형상을 깨뜨리고 정의가 영원토록 지배하는 나라 곧 메시야 왕국이 즉시 설립될 것이라는-- 극적인 이야기를 다니엘이 제시했다.
97:8.3 (1071.1)
But five hundred years of the overlordship of alien rulers was too much for even the patient and long-suffering Jews. The prophets and priests began to cry: “How long, O Lord, how long?” As the honest Jew searched the Scriptures, his confusion became worse confounded. An olden seer promised that God would protect and deliver his “chosen people.” Amos had threatened that God would abandon Israel unless they re-established their standards of national righteousness. The scribe of Deuteronomy had portrayed the Great Choice—as between the good and the evil, the blessing and the curse. Isaiah the first had preached a beneficent king-deliverer. Jeremiah had proclaimed an era of inner righteousness—the covenant written on the tablets of the heart. The second Isaiah talked about salvation by sacrifice and redemption. Ezekiel proclaimed deliverance through the service of devotion, and Ezra promised prosperity by adherence to the law. But in spite of all this they lingered on in bondage, and deliverance was deferred. Then Daniel presented the drama of the impending “crisis”—the smiting of the great image and the immediate establishment of the everlasting reign of righteousness, the Messianic kingdom.
97:8.4 (1071.2)
And all of this false hope led to such a degree of racial disappointment and frustration that the leaders of the Jews were so confused they failed to recognize and accept the mission and ministry of a divine Son of Paradise when he presently came to them in the likeness of mortal flesh—incarnated as the Son of Man.
97:8.5 (1071.3)
All modern religions have seriously blundered in the attempt to put a miraculous interpretation on certain epochs of human history. While it is true that God has many times thrust a Father’s hand of providential intervention into the stream of human affairs, it is a mistake to regard theologic dogmas and religious superstition as a supernatural sedimentation appearing by miraculous action in this stream of human history. The fact that the “Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men” does not convert secular history into so-called sacred history.
97:8.6 (1071.4)
New Testament authors and later Christian writers further complicated the distortion of Hebrew history by their well-meant attempts to transcendentalize the Jewish prophets. Thus has Hebrew history been disastrously exploited by both Jewish and Christian writers. Secular Hebrew history has been thoroughly dogmatized. It has been converted into a fiction of sacred history and has become inextricably bound up with the moral concepts and religious teachings of the so-called Christian nations.
97:9.1 (1071.6)
There never were twelve tribes of the Israelites—only three or four tribes settled in Palestine. The Hebrew nation came into being as the result of the union of the so-called Israelites and the Canaanites. “And the children of Israel dwelt among the Canaanites. And they took their daughters to be their wives and gave their daughters to the sons of the Canaanites.” The Hebrews never drove the Canaanites out of Palestine, notwithstanding that the priests’ record of these things unhesitatingly declared that they did.
97:9.3 (1072.1)
Pretentious Hebrew history begins with Saul’s rallying the northern clans to withstand an attack by the Ammonites upon their fellow tribesmen—the Gileadites—east of the Jordan. With an army of a little more than three thousand he defeated the enemy, and it was this exploit that led the hill tribes to make him king. When the exiled priests rewrote this story, they raised Saul’s army to 330,000 and added “Judah” to the list of tribes participating in the battle.
97:9.4 (1072.2)
Immediately following the defeat of the Ammonites, Saul was made king by popular election by his troops. No priest or prophet participated in this affair. But the priests later on put it in the record that Saul was crowned king by the prophet Samuel in accordance with divine directions. This they did in order to establish a “divine line of descent” for David’s Judahite kingship.
유대인 역사에서 가장 심한 왜곡은 다윗과 관련된 것이었다. 사울이 암몬족속을 무찌른 후에, (그는 이 공을 야훼에게 돌렸지만) 블레셋족속이 긴장하게 됐고, 북부 씨족들을 공격하기 시작했다. 다윗과 사울은 결코 화합할 수 없었다. 다윗과 600인은 블레셋족속 동맹에 가입했고, 에스드랠론 해안선으로 진격해 올라갔다. 블레셋족속은 가드에서 다윗에게 전쟁터를 떠나라고 명했는데;그들은 그가 사울에게 동조할 것을 염려했다. 다윗은 물러났으며;블레셋족속이 공격해서 사울을 격퇴시켰다. 다윗이 이스라엘에 충성했다면 그들이 이렇게 할 수 없었다. 다윗의 군대는 여러 나라 말을 쓰는 잡다한 불평꾼들이었는데, 대부분 사회에 적응하지 못하거나 처벌을 피해서 달아난 자였다.
97:9.5 (1072.3)
The greatest of all distortions of Jewish history had to do with David. After Saul’s victory over the Ammonites (which he ascribed to Yahweh) the Philistines became alarmed and began attacks on the northern clans. David and Saul never could agree. David with six hundred men entered into a Philistine alliance and marched up the coast to Esdraelon. At Gath the Philistines ordered David off the field; they feared he might go over to Saul. David retired; the Philistines attacked and defeated Saul. They could not have done this had David been loyal to Israel. David’s army was a polyglot assortment of malcontents, being for the most part made up of social misfits and fugitives from justice.
97:9.6 (1072.4)
Saul’s tragic defeat at Gilboa by the Philistines brought Yahweh to a low point among the gods in the eyes of the surrounding Canaanites. Ordinarily, Saul’s defeat would have been ascribed to apostasy from Yahweh, but this time the Judahite editors attributed it to ritual errors. They required the tradition of Saul and Samuel as a background for the kingship of David.
97:9.7 (1072.5)
David with his small army made his headquarters at the non-Hebrew city of Hebron. Presently his compatriots proclaimed him king of the new kingdom of Judah. Judah was made up mostly of non-Hebrew elements—Kenites, Calebites, Jebusites, and other Canaanites. They were nomads—herders—and so were devoted to the Hebrew idea of land ownership. They held the ideologies of the desert clans.
다윗을 왕으로 세우는 것에 관한, 구약 성경에서 발견되는 두 가지 다른 이야기가, 신성한 역사와 세속 역사 사이의 차이를 잘 설명해준다. 그의 측근 추종자들이(곧 그의 군대가) 그를 왕으로 만든 세속 이야기의 일부가, 제사장들의 부주의로 기록에 남게 됐는데, 이 제사장들은 나중에 신성한 역사에 관하여 길고도 무미건조한 설명을 만들어냈으며, 선지자 사무엘이 신성한 지시에 따라서 어떻게 다윗을 그의 형제들 중에서 선택하고, 공식적으로 진행하여 정교하고 엄숙한 예식에 따라 히브리인의 왕이 되도록 그에게 기름 붓고, 그다음에 그를 사울의 후계자로 선포했는지에 대해 묘사했다.
97:9.8 (1072.6)
The difference between sacred and profane history is well illustrated by the two differing stories concerning making David king as they are found in the Old Testament. A part of the secular story of how his immediate followers (his army) made him king was inadvertently left in the record by the priests who subsequently prepared the lengthy and prosaic account of the sacred history wherein is depicted how the prophet Samuel, by divine direction, selected David from among his brethren and proceeded formally and by elaborate and solemn ceremonies to anoint him king over the Hebrews and then to proclaim him Saul’s successor.
그런 방식으로 그런 민족으로부터, 에브라임족속의 이스라엘이라는 사라지는 북부 왕국의 유산과 전통을 이어받은, 신성한 유다 왕국을 다윗이 세웠다는 허구를 꾸며냈다. 유다라는 다윗의 국제적 부족은, 유대인이라기보다 오히려 이방인이었는데;그럼에도 강요당한 에브라임의 장로들이 내려와서, “그를 이스라엘의 왕으로 기름 부었다.” 군사적으로 협박한 후에, 다윗은 여부스족속과 조약을 맺었고, 결합된 왕국의 수도를 여부스(곧 예루살렘)에 세웠는데, 그곳은 유다와 이스라엘 사이의 중간에 위치한 매우 강력한 성벽이 있는 성읍이었다. 블레셋족속이 자극받아서 곧 다윗을 공격했다. 격심한 전투가 있은 후에 그들은 패배했고, 야훼는 다시 한 번 “만군의 주 하나님”으로 확립됐다.
97:9.11 (1073.1)
And it was by such methods and out of such people that David built up the fiction of a divine kingdom of Judah as the successor of the heritage and traditions of the vanishing northern kingdom of Ephraimite Israel. David’s cosmopolitan tribe of Judah was more gentile than Jewish; nevertheless the oppressed elders of Ephraim came down and “anointed him king of Israel.” After a military threat, David then made a compact with the Jebusites and established his capital of the united kingdom at Jebus (Jerusalem), which was a strong-walled city midway between Judah and Israel. The Philistines were aroused and soon attacked David. After a fierce battle they were defeated, and once more Yahweh was established as “The Lord God of Hosts.”
97:9.12 (1073.2)
But Yahweh must, perforce, share some of this glory with the Canaanite gods, for the bulk of David’s army was non-Hebrew. And so there appears in your record (overlooked by the Judahite editors) this telltale statement: “Yahweh has broken my enemies before me. Therefore he called the name of the place Baal-Perazim.” And they did this because eighty per cent of David’s soldiers were Baalites.
97:9.13 (1073.3)
David explained Saul’s defeat at Gilboa by pointing out that Saul had attacked a Canaanite city, Gibeon, whose people had a peace treaty with the Ephraimites. Because of this, Yahweh forsook him. Even in Saul’s time David had defended the Canaanite city of Keilah against the Philistines, and then he located his capital in a Canaanite city. In keeping with the policy of compromise with the Canaanites, David turned seven of Saul’s descendants over to the Gibeonites to be hanged.
다윗의 부도덕한 정치 조직은, 히브리인의 사회관행과는 반대로, 북쪽에서 땅을 개인적으로 소유하기 시작했고, 전에 블레셋족속이 거둬들였던 대상{隊商} 관세에 대한 통제권을 마침내 획득하게 됐다. 그다음에는 우리야를 죽임으로써 그 포학성이 절정에 이르게 됐다. 모든 법률 소송을 예루살렘에서 판결했는데;“장로들”은 더 이상 상벌을 시행할 수 없었다. 반역이 일어나는 것은 당연했다. 오늘날 압살롬을 선동가라고 부를지 모르지만;그의 어머니는 가나안족속이었다. 밧세바의 아들--솔로몬-- 외에도 왕위를 차지하려고 다투는 아들이 여섯이나 있었다.
97:9.15 (1073.5)
David’s corrupt political machine began to get personal possession of land in the north in violation of the Hebrew mores and presently gained control of the caravan tariffs formerly collected by the Philistines. And then came a series of atrocities climaxed by the murder of Uriah. All judicial appeals were adjudicated at Jerusalem; no longer could “the elders” mete out justice. No wonder rebellion broke out. Today, Absalom might be called a demagogue; his mother was a Canaanite. There were a half dozen contenders for the throne besides the son of Bathsheba—Solomon.
97:9.16 (1073.6)
After David’s death Solomon purged the political machine of all northern influences but continued all of the tyranny and taxation of his father’s regime. Solomon bankrupted the nation by his lavish court and by his elaborate building program: There was the house of Lebanon, the palace of Pharaoh’s daughter, the temple of Yahweh, the king’s palace, and the restoration of the walls of many cities. Solomon created a vast Hebrew navy, operated by Syrian sailors and trading with all the world. His harem numbered almost one thousand.
97:9.17 (1073.7)
By this time Yahweh’s temple at Shiloh was discredited, and all the worship of the nation was centered at Jebus in the gorgeous royal chapel. The northern kingdom returned more to the worship of Elohim. They enjoyed the favor of the Pharaohs, who later enslaved Judah, putting the southern kingdom under tribute.
97:9.18 (1073.8)
There were ups and downs—wars between Israel and Judah. After four years of civil war and three dynasties, Israel fell under the rule of city despots who began to trade in land. Even King Omri attempted to buy Shemer’s estate. But the end drew on apace when Shalmaneser III decided to control the Mediterranean coast. King Ahab of Ephraim gathered ten other groups and resisted at Karkar; the battle was a draw. The Assyrian was stopped but the allies were decimated. This great fight is not even mentioned in the Old Testament.
아합 왕이 나봇의 땅을 사려하자, 새로운 문제가 제기됐다. 그의 페니키아인 아내가 아합의 이름을 위조하여, 나봇이 “엘로힘과 왕”의 이름을 욕되게 했기 때문에, 그 대가{代價}로 그의 땅을 몰수하라는 명령서를 만들었다. 그와 그의 아들들은 즉시 처형됐다. 활력 넘치는 엘리야가 거기에 나타나서, 나봇 가족을 죽인 것에 대해 아합을 비난했다. 그리하여 가장 위대한 선지자 가운데 하나였던 엘리야는, 바알 숭배자의 땅-매매 태도에 대항하여, 즉 도시가 농촌을 지배하려는 시도에 대항하여, 땅에 관한 옛 사회관행을 옹호하는 자로서 이처럼 그의 가르침을 시작했다. 그러나 그 개혁은, 사마리아에 있던 바알 선지자들(곧 토지 중개인들)을 죽이려고, 시골 지주{地主} 예후가 집시의 족장인 여호나답과 합세하기 전에는 성공하지 못했다.
97:9.19 (1074.1)
New trouble started when King Ahab tried to buy land from Naboth. His Phoenician wife forged Ahab’s name to papers directing that Naboth’s land be confiscated on the charge that he had blasphemed the names of “Elohim and the king.” He and his sons were promptly executed. The vigorous Elijah appeared on the scene denouncing Ahab for the murder of the Naboths. Thus Elijah, one of the greatest of the prophets, began his teaching as a defender of the old land mores as against the land-selling attitude of the Baalim, against the attempt of the cities to dominate the country. But the reform did not succeed until the country landlord Jehu joined forces with the gypsy chieftain Jehonadab to destroy the prophets (real estate agents) of Baal at Samaria.
97:9.20 (1074.2)
New life appeared as Jehoash and his son Jeroboam delivered Israel from its enemies. But by this time there ruled in Samaria a gangster-nobility whose depredations rivaled those of the Davidic dynasty of olden days. State and church went along hand in hand. The attempt to suppress freedom of speech led Elijah, Amos, and Hosea to begin their secret writing, and this was the real beginning of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.
그러나 이스라엘 왕이 이집트 왕과 음모를 꾸며서 앗수르에 조공 바치기를 거절할 때까지, 북왕국은 역사에서 사라지지 않았다. 그리고 나서 3년간 포위 공격이 있은 후에, 북왕국은 총체적으로 와해됐다. 에브라임(이스라엘)은 그렇게 사라졌다. 유다는--즉 유대인 곧 “이스라엘의 남은 자들”은--, 이사야가 “집을 가진 자가 더 갖고 땅을 가진 자가 더 갖는다”고 말한 것처럼, 소수의 무리에게 땅 소유권이 집중되기 시작했다. 마침내 야훼 성전과 바알 신전이 예루살렘에 나란히 세워지게 됐다. 이 공포분위기 통치는, 야훼를 위해 35년 동안 개혁 운동을 벌인 소년 왕 요아스가 주도한 일신교 폭동으로 말미암아 종말을 고하게 됐다.
97:9.21 (1074.3)
But the northern kingdom did not vanish from history until the king of Israel conspired with the king of Egypt and refused to pay further tribute to Assyria. Then began the three years’ siege followed by the total dispersion of the northern kingdom. Ephraim (Israel) thus vanished. Judah—the Jews, the “remnant of Israel”—had begun the concentration of land in the hands of the few, as Isaiah said, “Adding house to house and field to field.” Presently there was in Jerusalem a temple of Baal alongside the temple of Yahweh. This reign of terror was ended by a monotheistic revolt led by the boy king Joash, who crusaded for Yahweh for thirty-five years.
그다음 왕인 아마시야는, 세금을-납부하는 에돔족속과 그 이웃들의 폭동으로 고통당했다. 큰 승리를 거둔 후에, 그는 등을 돌려 북쪽의 이웃들을 공격했고, 똑같이 크게 패배했다. 그러자 시골에 있는 무리들이 폭동을 일으켰으며;왕을 암살하고, 열여섯 살 된 그의 아들을 왕위에 앉혔다. 그가 바로 아자리야인데, 이사야는 그를 웃시야라고 불렀다. 웃시야가 물러난 후에 상황은 더 나빠졌고, 유다는 앗수르 왕에게 공물을 바침으로써 100여년 존속될 수 있었다. 제1 이사야는, 예루살렘이 야훼의 성읍이므로 결코 망하지 않을 것이라고 그들에게 말했다. 그러나 예레미야는 그것이 함락될 것임을 주저하지 않고 선포했다.
97:9.22 (1074.4)
The next king, Amaziah, had trouble with the revolting tax-paying Edomites and their neighbors. After a signal victory he turned to attack his northern neighbors and was just as signally defeated. Then the rural folk revolted; they assassinated the king and put his sixteen-year-old son on the throne. This was Azariah, called Uzziah by Isaiah. After Uzziah, things went from bad to worse, and Judah existed for a hundred years by paying tribute to the kings of Assyria. Isaiah the first told them that Jerusalem, being the city of Yahweh, would never fall. But Jeremiah did not hesitate to proclaim its downfall.
97:9.23 (1074.5)
The real undoing of Judah was effected by a corrupt and rich ring of politicians operating under the rule of a boy king, Manasseh. The changing economy favored the return of the worship of Baal, whose private land dealings were against the ideology of Yahweh. The fall of Assyria and the ascendancy of Egypt brought deliverance to Judah for a time, and the country folk took over. Under Josiah they destroyed the Jerusalem ring of corrupt politicians.
97:9.24 (1074.6)
But this era came to a tragic end when Josiah presumed to go out to intercept Necho’s mighty army as it moved up the coast from Egypt for the aid of Assyria against Babylon. He was wiped out, and Judah went under tribute to Egypt. The Baal political party returned to power in Jerusalem, and thus began the real Egyptian bondage. Then ensued a period in which the Baalim politicians controlled both the courts and the priesthood. Baal worship was an economic and social system dealing with property rights as well as having to do with soil fertility.
97:9.25 (1075.1)
With the overthrow of Necho by Nebuchadnezzar, Judah fell under the rule of Babylon and was given ten years of grace, but soon rebelled. When Nebuchadnezzar came against them, the Judahites started social reforms, such as releasing slaves, to influence Yahweh. When the Babylonian army temporarily withdrew, the Hebrews rejoiced that their magic of reform had delivered them. It was during this period that Jeremiah told them of the impending doom, and presently Nebuchadnezzar returned.
97:9.27 (1075.3)
In Babylon the Jews arrived at the conclusion that they could not exist as a small group in Palestine, having their own peculiar social and economic customs, and that, if their ideologies were to prevail, they must convert the gentiles. Thus originated their new concept of destiny—the idea that the Jews must become the chosen servants of Yahweh. The Jewish religion of the Old Testament really evolved in Babylon during the captivity.
97:9.28 (1075.4)
The doctrine of immortality also took form at Babylon. The Jews had thought that the idea of the future life detracted from the emphasis of their gospel of social justice. Now for the first time theology displaced sociology and economics. Religion was taking shape as a system of human thought and conduct more and more to be separated from politics, sociology, and economics.
97:10.1 (1075.6)
Their leaders had taught the Israelites that they were a chosen people, not for special indulgence and monopoly of divine favor, but for the special service of carrying the truth of the one God over all to every nation. And they had promised the Jews that, if they would fulfill this destiny, they would become the spiritual leaders of all peoples, and that the coming Messiah would reign over them and all the world as the Prince of Peace.
97:10.2 (1075.7)
When the Jews had been freed by the Persians, they returned to Palestine only to fall into bondage to their own priest-ridden code of laws, sacrifices, and rituals. And as the Hebrew clans rejected the wonderful story of God presented in the farewell oration of Moses for the rituals of sacrifice and penance, so did these remnants of the Hebrew nation reject the magnificent concept of the second Isaiah for the rules, regulations, and rituals of their growing priesthood.
97:10.3 (1075.8)
National egotism, false faith in a misconceived promised Messiah, and the increasing bondage and tyranny of the priesthood forever silenced the voices of the spiritual leaders (excepting Daniel, Ezekiel, Haggai, and Malachi); and from that day to the time of John the Baptist all Israel experienced an increasing spiritual retrogression. But the Jews never lost the concept of the Universal Father; even to the twentieth century after Christ they have continued to follow this Deity conception.
97:10.4 (1076.1)
From Moses to John the Baptist there extended an unbroken line of faithful teachers who passed the monotheistic torch of light from one generation to another while they unceasingly rebuked unscrupulous rulers, denounced commercializing priests, and ever exhorted the people to adhere to the worship of the supreme Yahweh, the Lord God of Israel.
유대인은 결국, 한 나라로서의 정치적 주체성을 잃었지만, 유일하신 우주의 하나님에 대한 진지한 믿음을 갖는 히브리인의 종교는, 흩어진 유랑민 가슴속에 계속 살아있다. 그리고 이 종교가 살아남은 것은, 그것이 추종자들의 최고 가치를 보존하도록 효과적으로 작용했기 때문이다. 유대인의 종교는 민족의 이상{理想}을 보존했으나, 진리의 영역에 대한 철학적인 창조적 발굴을 더 발전시키고 촉진시키기에는 실패했다. 유대인 종교는 --철학이 부족하고 심미적 특성이 거의 없는-- 많은 결점을 가진 반면, 도덕적 가치관을 보존했으며;그래서 존속됐다. 다른 신격 개념들과 비교할 때, 지존하신 야훼는, 명쾌하고, 생생하고, 개인적이고, 도덕적이었다.
97:10.5 (1076.2)
As a nation the Jews eventually lost their political identity, but the Hebrew religion of sincere belief in the one and universal God continues to live in the hearts of the scattered exiles. And this religion survives because it has effectively functioned to conserve the highest values of its followers. The Jewish religion did preserve the ideals of a people, but it failed to foster progress and encourage philosophic creative discovery in the realms of truth. The Jewish religion had many faults—it was deficient in philosophy and almost devoid of aesthetic qualities—but it did conserve moral values; therefore it persisted. The supreme Yahweh, as compared with other concepts of Deity, was clear-cut, vivid, personal, and moral.
97:10.6 (1076.3)
The Jews loved justice, wisdom, truth, and righteousness as have few peoples, but they contributed least of all peoples to the intellectual comprehension and to the spiritual understanding of these divine qualities. Though Hebrew theology refused to expand, it played an important part in the development of two other world religions, Christianity and Mohammedanism.
97:10.7 (1076.4)
The Jewish religion persisted also because of its institutions. It is difficult for religion to survive as the private practice of isolated individuals. This has ever been the error of the religious leaders: Seeing the evils of institutionalized religion, they seek to destroy the technique of group functioning. In place of destroying all ritual, they would do better to reform it. In this respect Ezekiel was wiser than his contemporaries; though he joined with them in insisting on personal moral responsibility, he also set about to establish the faithful observance of a superior and purified ritual.
이처럼 계승하는 이스라엘 선생들은, 일찍이 유란시아에서 발생됐던 종교 진화에서 가장 큰 업적을 달성했는데:굉음을 발하면서 폭발하는 시내산 화산의 질투심 많고 잔인한 영적 신, 즉 미개한 정령{精靈} 야훼라는 야만적 개념으로부터, 나중에 고귀하고 숭고한 최고 야훼 개념, 즉 만유의 창조자요 애정이 깊고 자비를 베푸시는 온 인류의 아버지개념으로, 점진적이지만 계속되는 변화가 있었다. 그리고 히브리인의 이런 하나님 개념은, 하나님의 아들, 네바돈의 미가엘이 친히 주신 가르침과 생애의 본보기로 인해 더욱 확장되고 절묘하게 확대될 때까지, 우주 아버지에 대한 인간의 심상{心像} 중에서 가장 높은 것이었다.
97:10.8 (1076.5)
And thus the successive teachers of Israel accomplished the greatest feat in the evolution of religion ever to be effected on Urantia: the gradual but continuous transformation of the barbaric concept of the savage demon Yahweh, the jealous and cruel spirit god of the fulminating Sinai volcano, to the later exalted and supernal concept of the supreme Yahweh, creator of all things and the loving and merciful Father of all mankind. And this Hebraic concept of God was the highest human visualization of the Universal Father up to that time when it was further enlarged and so exquisitely amplified by the personal teachings and life example of his Son, Michael of Nebadon.