FROM LIVING GOD TO SILENT GOD: THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DEITY, YAHWEH IN JUDAISM

Year 2023, Volume: 59 Issue: 1, 343 - 376, 16.03.2023

Mustafa Alıcı

Abstract

From a historical phenomenological perspective, it was the Jewish God who transformed Jewish history into a history of salvation. Hence, the Jewish tradition has endeavored to develop unique theological discourses in response to challenges encountered in every era. This study argues that the Israelites’ understanding of God shows parallel phenomenological developmental stages in relation to the historical journey of the Jewish people. In the first phase, Yahweh appears as the Supreme Being who promises the land to Abraham, the father of the Israelites. In the second phase, Yahweh becomes a supreme God who, as a community, frees the Israelites from slavery in pagan Egypt and can be expressed in the terminology of the existing polytheistic world. In the final phase, the national God of the Israelites with a universal character appears as a developed teo-political monotheism, which enters into monolatry or syncretic interactions thanks to strengthening political leadership and emerges as the Singular God who destroys other local deities. In recent times, especially under the pressure of modernism, Judaism continues to see itself as a monotheistic ethno-cultural and theo-political tradition, dedicating itself to the purpose of "being a people in the image of God," while continuing to identify God's absoluteness and infinity with its ethno-cultural existence and its longing for eternal permanence from a human perspective.

Keywords

History of Religions, Judaism, God, Monotheism, Prophets.

YAŞAYAN TANRI’DAN SUSKUN TANRI’YA: YAHUDİLİK’TE TANRI YAHVEH’NİN TARİHSEL GELİŞİMİ

Abstract

Tarihsel fenomenolojik açıdan Yahudi tarihini bir kurtuluş tarihine dönüştüren Yahudi Tanrısı olmuştur. Buna bağlı olarak Yahudi geleneği de her devirde karşılaşılan sorunlara özgün teolojik söylemler ortaya koymaya çalışmıştır. Bu çalışmanın temel tezi şudur; İsrailoğullarının Tanrı anlayışı, Yahudi kavminin tarihsel serüvenine paralel fenomenolojik gelişim safhaları göstermiştir; ilk safha; “İsrailoğullarının de babası” olarak kabul edilen İbrahim’e “toprak vaadinde bulunan” Yüce Varlık Yahveh göze çarpmaktadır. İkinci safha; Yahveh, bir kavim haline gelerek teo-politik kudrete sahip olan İsrailoğullarını pagan Mısır’da kölelikten özgürlüğe ulaştıran ve mevcut politeist dünyanın terminolojisiyle ifade edebilen bir Yüce Tanrı’ya dönüşmüştür. Son safha; İsrailoğullarının evrensel karakterdeki milli Tanrısı, güçlenen siyasi liderlikler sayesinde monolatri veya senkretik etkileşimlere girerek gelişmiş teo-politik monoteizm formu kazanarak diğer yerel ilahları yok edici Tek-Eşsiz Tanrı olarak ortaya çıkmıştır. Son dönemde bilhassa modernizmin baskısı altında Yahudilik, kendisini monoteist bir etno-kültürel ve teo-politik gelenek olarak, kendi devamlılığını “Tanrı imgesindeki halk olma” amacına adamakla beraber Tanrı’nın mutlaklığı ve sonsuzluğunu, kendisinin etno-kültürel varlığıyla ve beşeri açıdan sonsuza kadar kalış özlemiyle özdeş görmeye devam etmektedir.

Keywords

Dinler Tarihi, Yahudilik, Tanrı, Monoteizm, Peygamberler.

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