Types of Redemption: Contributions to the Theme of the Study-Conference Held at Jerusalem 14th to 19th July 1968 9789004378094, 9789004016194

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TYPES OF REDEMPTION CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME OF THE STUDY-CONFERENCE HELD AT JERUSALEM 14TH TO 19TH JULY 1968

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STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS (SUPPLEMENTS TO NU MEN) XVIII TYPES OF REDEMPTION CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME OF THE STUDY-CONFERENCE HELD AT JERUSALEM 14TH TO 19TH JULY 1968

LEIDEN

E.

J. BRILL 1970

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TYPES OF REDEMPTION CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE THEME OF THE STUDY-CONFERENCE HELD AT JERUSALEM 14TH TO 19TH JULY 1968 EDITED BY

Dr R. J. ZWI WERBLOWSKY Hebrew University of Jerusalem

AND

Dr C. JOUCO BLEEKER University of Amsterdam

LEIDEN

E. J. BRILL 1970

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Copyright 1970 by E. ]. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche o, any other means without written permission from the publisher PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

Introduction R. J. Zw1 WERBLOWSKY

1

A word of Greeting . H. I. H. The Prince MIKASA

3

Opening Address . GERSHOM G. ScHOLEM (Jerusalem)

5 13

Erlosung wovon? Erlosung wozu? V. MAAG (Zurich) 1st die griechische Religion eine Erlosungsreligion? Typisierung oder Charakterisierung der Phanomene der Religionsgeschichte KARL KERENYI ( Ascona)

26

Redemption in ancient Egypt and early Christianity . s. G. F. BRANDON (Manchester)

36

Salvation present and future . D. FLUSSER (Jerusalem)

46

Adam et la redemption clans la perspective de l'eglise ancienne . MARCEL SIMON (Strasbourg)

62

Eschatology and the concept of time in the Slavonic book of Enoch s. PINES (Jerusalem)

72

The basis of the idea of redemption in Japanese religions . T. ISHIZU (Tokyo)

88

Grace and freedom in the way of salvation in Japanese Buddhism H. DUMOULIN (Tokyo)

98

.

105

Three types of redemption in Japanese folk region . I. HORI (Tokyo) Different types of redemption in ancient Mexican religion . G. LANCZKOWSKI (Heidelberg)

120

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CONTENTS Page

The myth of incest as symbol for redemption in Vedic India . R. p ANIKKAR ( Benares)

130

Indian aborigine contributions to Hindu ideas of mukti liberation H. PRESLER (Jabalpur, M.P.)

144

Is there a concept of redemption in Islam? . Mrs. H. LAZARUS-YAFEH (Jerusalem)

168

Redemption in Ganda traditional belief A. M. LUGIRA (Uganda)

181

Redemption and repentance in Talmudic Judaism . E. E. URBACH (Jerusalem)

190

Self-redemption in Hasidic thought Mrs. R. SCHATZ-UFFENHEIMER (Jerusalem)

.

The concept of freedom as redemption T. R. V. MuRTI (Benares)

. 213

207

Eschatology and the goal of the religious life m Sasanian Zoroastrianism 223 S. SHAKED (Jerusalem) Demeter und Gaia im sogenannten homerischen DemeterHymnus. 231 KURT GOLDAMMER (Marburg) Types of Redemption: a summary R. J. Zw1 WERBLOWSKY (Jerusalem)

243

Index Rerum et Nominum

249

Index Locorum

259

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INTRODUCTION The International Association for the History of Religion has made it a practice to hold smaller "study conferences" in the periods in between the Association's larger quinqueanial congresses. Such study conferences have taken place in Strasbourg ( 1964 on Initiation) and in Messina (1966 on Gnosticism). At the Claremont Congress in 1965 the proposal was made to hold a study conference in Jerusalem. The Israel Society for the Study of Religions, as the local affiliate of the I.A.H.R., undertook to organize the conference which was held, under the auspices of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, from July 14th-19th, 1968, and gratefully acknowledges the assistance received from academic, governmental and international bodies (The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, The Ministry of Education and Culture as well as other governmental agencies, U.N.E.S.C.O.). The President of the State, Mr. Z. Shazar, manifested his interest in the Study Conference both by attending the opening session and by receiving the participants at his residence. As this Study Conference was the first international meeting held by the I.A.H.R. on the Asian continent since the Tokyo Coagress ( 195 8), it seemed appropriate to underline this continuity by requesting the Hon. Chairman of the earlier Congress to assume the same function at the Jerusalem Conference. H.I.H. The Prince Mikasa graciously acceded to this request and consented to act as Hon. Chairman; as he was prevented from attending the Conference in person he sent a message which was read at the opening session. The Conference met in six plenary sessions ( not counting the more social gatherings and sight-seeing excursions). Unfortunately many last-but-one as well as some last minute changes made the actual programme of the Conference less complete and well-rounded than originally planned. Some key papers ( e.g. Prof. E. von Ivanka on Gnosticism and Neoplatonism as "religions of salvation" or Dr. Trevor Ling on the social character of redemption in Pali Buddhism) which would have materially enriched the discussions had to be cancelled because their authors could not attend. Prof. V. Maag of Zurich was prevented by illness from attending; his paper reached Jerusalem only after the end of the Conference but is, nevertheless, included in

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INTRODUCTION

the Proceedings. The other papers are printed here in the order in which they were read at the Conference. Some participants did not submit written texts of their papers, and hence some names and lecture titles figuring in the printed programme of the Study Conference do not appear in the present volume 1 ). It must be admitted that a small study conference is affected to a much greater degree by such changes and lacunae in the programme than a mammoth congress would be. Nevertheless the editors hope that the present volume will be found useful by historians of religion, and will make its own small contribution to the study of a subject which, although not co-extensive with the phenomenon of religion, is certainly one of its most wide-spread and important elements. R.

J.

Zw1

WERBLOWSKY

C. Jouco BLEEKER 1) Owing to a technical mishap, Prof. Ugo Bianchi's paper "Redemption in the Book of Adam and Eve" was not included in this volume, and will be published in NUMEN.

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A WORD OF GREETING BY

H. I. H. THE PRINCE MIKASA It is a privilege and honour for me to send a word of greeting to you all assembled at the westernmost end of Asia from its easternmost extremity on this happy occasion of the opening of the Jerusalem Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions. While greatly regretting that I am unable personally to be with you and participate in the present Conference, I am most appreciative of your kindest thought in appointing me as its Honorary President, for which I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude. No less than ten years have already passed since the International Congress of the IAHR was first held in Asia, and that at no place other than Tokyo where I live. Ever since that time, the IAHR, as I understand, has been pursuing a plan for "its extension in the East." It has succeeded in organizing the A.-A. Group, and the scholars in the countries of Asia and Africa have come to co-operate with one another in their works and activities. This Jerusalem Conference, too, is one of the important programmes of the plan. I take this opportunity of offering my warmest congratulations and appreciation to Dr. Widengren, President, and Dr. Bleeker, Secretary-General, of the IAHR who are the promotors of the significant plan, and also to all other members of the Association. At the same time, I would like to express my grateful thanks to Prof. Scholem and Prof. Werblowsky of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who have so successfully carried through the great task of making all arrangements to organize the present Conference. Now, I send from this far end of Asia my sincerest good wishes for a success of the Conference as well as for the further extension of the JAHR, and for the good health of you all the members.

TAKAHITO

Tokyo, July 14, 1968.

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OPENING ADDRESS BY

G. SCHOLEM The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Chairman, The Israel Society for the Study of Religions

On behalf of the Organizing Committee it is my pleasant task to take the chair at the Opening Session of the Study Conference of the International Association for the History of Religions. I have the honour to welcome among us the distinguished guests who have come to attend this Session: Mr. Zalman Shazar, President of the State of Israel; Mr. Zalman Aranne, Minister of Education and Culture; Professor Nathan Rotenstreich, Rector of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Mr. Andre Chouraqui, Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem. It goes without saying that our cordial welcome is extended equally to the participants of this Conference, many of whom have come from far away, and to all the guests who have joined us this evening. A special greeting should also go to our Honorary President, Prince Mikasa of Japan, who, to his and our deep regret, has been unable to come. We are very fortunate, however, to have with us the President of our Association, Professor Geo Widengren of Upsala University to whose opening lecture we look forward with great anticipation. The International Congresses of the Association are held every five years, and the last time we met at a large gathering in Claremont, California, in 1965. But in 1955, at the congress in Rome, it was decided to hold a special study conference in the interval between one congress and the next. Two of these have taken place in 1963 in Strasbourg and 1966 in Messina. Now in 1968, our Jerusalem host is the Israel Society for the Study of Religions which is our branch of the International Association. We have received the sponsorship and assistance of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Hebrew University. To them we express our warm thanks as well as to the Council of UNESCO and the Government of Israel who have also contributed generously to the financial arrangements. NUMEN,

Suppl. XVIII

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This is a great hour for us who are interested in the scholarly study of religion, to gather in the place that, in the history of religion, has such reverberating significance. It is here that religion, as one of the fundamental normative elements in the formation of the life of man and human society, took shape in some of its most influential and characteristic forms. Three great religious universes, Judaism, Christianity and Islam originated here or are, at least, unthinkable without their conne::tions with the manifestations of religion that crystallized here. Jerusalem has become a holy place to all three of them. None of us, whether believer or sceptic, follower of a historical religious tradition or the scholar who consciously refrains from identifying himself with the tenets of any religion, can tread the paths of this city and this country without being affected. Even in the metamorphosis that has taken place here in our time, in the clashes between se:::ularism and the demands of more traditional ways of religion or religiosity, we all are still conscious of the strong historical atmosphere that has given these places a special aura of their own. Jerusalem is certainly a place that sets the mind thinking as to the living power of religion and of its changing manifestations in past and present, in the study of which the scholar is engaged. Let me express the hope that those of you who have come from abroad, will not leave without a definite sense of this atmosphere which inevitably leaves its mark on those of us whose life and work is bound up with this country, the country of our past and future. There hills have heard the first message of eternal peace proclaimed by the prophets of Israel. I feel sure I do not overstep the limits of this discourse in voicing the hope that peace will be restored and finally vouchsafed to these parts torn so long by strife. The International Association for the History of Religions is a scholarly body devoted to the study of religious phenomena in a broad sense. It is composed of people who try to understand these phenomena, the structure which gives each of them its special meaning, and their development in the proper historical context. It uses the methods of historical research, of phenomenological analysis, and last but not least of sociology and psychology in order to get an insight into what constitutes the varieties of religious experience. This is easily said, but behind these words there lurks an unending and sometimes rather acrimonious discussion about matters of method and approach. Do what is often called history of religions, phenomenology of religions, or comparative religion, cover the same ground and can they be considered

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OPENING ADDRESS

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as identical or at least kindred disciplines which explore different facets of the phenomena complementing each other? Or should they instead be separated, each going its own way and forging instruments and methods of research suited best to their respective aims? The last fifty years have been full of these discussions which reverberate in our councils and have produced a great wealth of highly interesting and enlightening literature. What are the presuppositions on which these disciplines are based and what are their implications? Is an understanding of a religious phenomenon possible without sharing the experience which has brought it about? What precisely is the meaning of "understanding" a religious phenomenon? Can such understanding actually transcend what in earlier stages of scholarship was aimed at by description and historical, sociological and psychological analysis? All these are still largely open questions and it would be presumptions on my part to take a stand on them on this occasion. If I mention these questions and discussions which are still likely to continue for a long time, it is in order to underline what I consider a matter of altogether legitimate differences of opinion within a common framework. For whatever we call ourselves or however we define our approaches, we have a common ground, if only of a negative nature: we do not aspire to speak about the truth or value of religion, we do not talk as theologians or defenders of faith. Comparative religion, or the history of religions, makes no assumptions about the rights or wrongs of theology. Some of us, to be sure, hold strong opinions about these matters, and they may well speak as theologians on other occasions and in other contexts, but as Religionswissenschaftler, to use the commonly accepted term, they practise the great virtue of reserving their judgment. We do not bear witness and we do not state our reasons for belief. Some of us believe in God and some of us do not, and I do not deny that this very basic difference may colour our approach in exploring certain delicate fields of research, such as advanced states of mystical experience. But, entering the sphere of scholarly research in the phenomena of religion, we all agree that statements regarding ultimate truths or the value of a given system or series of facts are not of our concern. Trying to describe or to understand the phenomena of religion may be a very modest thing compared to the ambitious aspirations of those who claim to have a message, be it as theologians or as witnesses to Truth. But this is what historical scholarship stands for, and to achieve it, an immense effort of disciplined minds and the cooperation of many scholars from the four corners of the earth are

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required. We are delighted to have with us scholars from East and West who will be meeting here on common ground.

II As the theme of this conference, we have chosen to discus "Types of Redemption", certainly one of the fundamental subjects with which the historian of religion has to deal. And which place could be more fitting for a discussion of this kind than Jerusalem which has played such an important part in the history and development of this concept Redemption, its roots in psychology, history and society has, I venture to say, been discussed and explored from every thinkable angle, both by theologians of the various religions and by the historians of religion and anthropologists. Thoughtful scholars have given a great deal of attention to its meaning for man, and I doubt whether there is a basic point of view or an important aspect that has not yet been considered. To say something original on the general problem is wellnigh impossible. But I think it appropriate to summarise very briefly what has been said by so many distinguished scholars at great length, especially by people who have studied religions in which the concept of redemption holds the central place, such as the religions of India, Judaism and Christianity. But even in other religions, the quest for redemption has taken on many forms, and the deeper research went into American and African religions the clearer it became that they, too, contained elements closely connected in one way or the other with redemption in one of its manifold meanings. Redemption, first and foremost, is a promise held out to the individual or to the community, to say nothing of mankind as a whole. It is a promise the realisation of which may be achieved in the course of human life, or it may stand out as a hope to be fulfilled in a much wider perspective transcending the life of the individual, in a afterlife, in a messianic state or in a general cosmic context. But before looking at its possible meanings, the question arises: what makes this promise crystallize, what are the origins of such a hope for a release that would be so utterly different from all that preceded it. The answer is obvious: it is the experience of insufficiency, of human want and misery, whether it be on the material or the moral level which is at the root of the quest for redemption. There are very diverse experiences that open up such wide vistas of what may be called a redeemed state. There is, first of all, and all-comprising,

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death. And even where death is not a final step but, as in Indian religion, a link in an unending chain of rebirth, there is the wish to overcome all this, to be liberated from an existence that by its very nature seems to be connected with suffering, with passion and fear, with ignorance and limitation. It is in contradistinction to these experiences that redemption has been conceived. Suffering as such, even in its most naturalistic aspects, gives birth to conceptions that promise release from it. The more the sense of suffering deepens and the moral life of man takes shape in that great dichotomy of good and evil, the more powerful becomes the moral aspect of redemption as a state in which the power of evil is broken. Moral failure deepens into the sense of sin and begets the longing for redemption. In one word, it is always the burdens and limitations of existence the alleviation of which is sought in the state of redemption. Often enough, at least in the so-called higher religions, it is the development of philosophical speculation about the world and man's lot in it, that has coloured the specific meaning given to redemption. Philosophy and religion become intertwined, as e.g. in the role which the theory of karma, of moral causality, by which man's actions in this life absolutely determine his mode of rebirth, has played in Indian religion, or the theory of heimarmene, the power of Fate lodged in the stars, has played in the Hellenistic mystery religions and in gnosticism. There are, then, infinite variations of the state from which redemption is sought, and these may even be mutually exclusive. The drive of will power, the normal state of human consciousness and its perception of finite things-they are subject to evaluations postulating the necessity to transcend or even to destroy them. The question, however, of the roots from which the quest for redemption grows implies at the same time the question of who it is to whom redemption should come. The history of religion knows two distinct answers, even though attempts to combine both of them in a wider synthesis, are not lacking altogether. There is redemption of the individual by whatever ways and means, its elevation to a higher state, its dissolution into a larger unit of what often has been called cosmic consciousness, or, transcending it, the life of divinity. These are positive affirmations of the aim of individual redemption. But there are, at the other pole, those tendencies which seek the final annihilation of the individual in such an action. I spoke about the individual as the subject of redemption, choosing a term which tries to evade concepts, like that of the soul, which

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have meaning only within the context of certain assumptions ( often of a philosophical nature) about what constitutes man. It is well known that there are religions which deny the existence of a soul in the sense in which the term is used in western philosophical tradition. Of this type, Buddhism is the most famous example, being at the same time an outstanding paradigm of a religion of redemption. I would not venture to express an opinion on whether the quest for individual redemption preceded historically that type of redemption which looked for the community, a whole people or mankind in its totality as its authentic bearer. Here, redemption is no longer an experience taking place within the individual and born out of his needs, an experience at that, which often cannot be easily communicated to other individuals; it is rather an experience which, by its very nature, is common to all members of the group and understood therefore by all. I might even say that this formulation is based on an understatement. For there are famous cases, like redemption in Judaism where the decisive experience is of a historical character and quite different from any event that may occur to an individual. The theatre of redemption has changed. It is history and not the hidden recesses of mind where it takes place. It is a visible phenomenon, seen as well as felt. It may have a spiritual aspect, too, and even one of great importance, but this aspect cannot be separated from the historical experience. This is the phenomenon known as Messianism about which I shall make some remarks later on. There are, of course, in the history of religion, transitions by which systems of individual redemption widen into a system of an allcomprising one, and vice versa. In the history of Buddhism, the development of Mahayana out of Hinayana serves as an example for the first kind of transition. In the history of Monotheism, we have, in the opposite direction, the development of the various conceptions of salvation and redemption in the churches and sects of Christianity which have developed out of, and sometimes in contradistinction to, the historical concept of redemption in Judaism. They are not always mutually exclusive and the history of both Judaism and Christianity knows of particular developments that try to combine them in one form or another. But this should not blind us to the basic difference existing between the two approaches. As their common root, I would consider the two phenomena of guilt and of suffering, both of them obviously capable of being experienced by individuals and communities alike. There is little reason to assume that the phenomenon of collective guilt, which plays such an important role in the history of ritual, is later

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than that of individual guilt, and the double character of suffering scarcely needs stressing. For all the intrinsic interest of the clear-cut and radical forms of individual versus collective redemption, the historian of religion must at least be equally concerned in the interplay between the two. I have said in the beginning that redemption is a promise. What is the nature of this promise? That differs with every religious system. It may be knowledge or bliss; it may be freedom or eternal life. It may also be a combination of some of these elements. They are conceived as ultimates, standing out against the existential limitations of human life in its unredeemed state. When religion undergoes, as it does so often and so visibly in our days, the process of secularisation, that is to say when it is interpreted in apparently irreligious terms, we encounter a very characteristic shifting of emphasis: what was formerly taken as a state of redemption, especially in its messianic connotations, by now becomes the condition in which alone true human experience is possible. The unredeemed state is no longer worthy to be called human. The redeemed state is where human experience starts. Thus, humanistic socialism has become the outstanding instance of a secularised religion of redemption. I have spoken about the starting points and the aims of redemption. The question arises: does man, be it as an individual, be it as a member of a collective, achieve his own redemption, or does he need the help of another agency, of God or a mediator? Dissension on this question goes deep. On the one hand man is working his own redemption or salvation, by purifying himself in ritual, by acting within a given law and order of life, by acquiring knowledge of a redeeming character or by abandoning himself to love-all these constituting ways and methods to achieve his ultimate goal. On the other hand, great stress is laid on the feeling or knowledge that man's power is insufficient to perform this step without help. It would be wrong to assume that with regard to this question there is always a clear-cut division between different religions; often enough the line runs within a given religion in its historical development. Christianity, of course, denied the capacity of man to redeem himself and established the need of and the belief in a redeemer as a matter of principle. But Judaism, which accepted no such mediator, had place for both views of attaining redemption. The Hebrew Bible when speaking of redemption, mostly but not exclusively in a collective sense, knows only God alone as performing it. Yet in the intricate processes by which Jewish Messianism developed, ideas

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grew up which put the main emphasis on man's own power and effort. It is fascinating to study the infinite variety in which the idea of redemption presents itself. In the subsequent sessions of our conference we shall have occasion to discuss some of them in greater detail. Let me end by making some remarks on Messianism, an aspect of redemption that has had a tremendous impact on human history. Messianism is based on the assumption that redemption either transforms or destroys history and is therefore an event bound up with the future. Religious redemption vouchsafed to an individual is an experience that may take place here and now. It has no messianic connotation. Messianic .redemption as it was conceived in Judaism as the result of a long development going through many phases was a collective phenomenon, the liberation of a nation from exile, the restoration of freedom and a vision of a just society. No amount of spiritualising its content has been able to divest it completely of its collective character, even though in Christianity which has done so much to give it a purely spiritual and religious interpretation ("geistlich", as the Germans say) this element has been reserved mostly for the Second Coming. The Hebrew Bible does not yet know of a Messiah in the sense the word took on in post-biblical times, but it knows of what we would call a messianic state, and of the apocalyptic and catastrophal changes preceding it. Yet, the decisive elements which went into the building up of its final structure, are already there and come increasingly to the fore in the subsequent history of the messianic idea. These elements are in my opinion the restorative and the utopian one. Redemption promises to restore a state which existed once and has been corrupted, but at the same time it promises to build up something which has never been there before, "a new heaven and a new earth", to use Isaiah's phrase. There is, then, the reintegration of all beings into a state of peace and harmony, but, as a matter of fact, this reintegration is much more than restoration. It is not the conservative element of turning back to a projection of the past into the future, that gives it is explosive power; it is rather the utopian hope that redemption will contain much more than any past, including any golden age. This expectation of the utterly novel, this hope for a reformation that is at the same time revolution, is at the heart of the messianic idea. It is this vision and this hope which are the contribution of Judaism to the understanding of redemption.

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ERLOSUNG WO VON? ERLOSUNG WOZU? VON

V. MAAG Zurich ZWEI VORBEMERKUNGEN

Das Generalthema ,,Types of Redemption" ladt geradezu eindringlich dazu ein, nach der Moglichkeit einer Klassierung der ErlosungsVorstellungen und -Erwartungen zu fragen. Und da ich oft fiir den Ausbau meiner eigenen Einsicht gar nicht schlecht fuhr, wenn ich der ersten Frage nachging, die sich spontan als Reaktion auf einen Titel ergab, habe ich mir erlaubt, auch in diesem Falle so zu verfahren. Klassierung setzt einen Raster voraus, den man gleichsam iiber die Fiille der Phanomene legen und diese nach seinen Koordinaten ordnen kann. Natiirlich stiinden fiir unseren Fall sehr verschiedene Koordioatensysteme zur Verfiigung. Eine Einteilung ware moglich nach den Gesichtspunkten Selbsterlosung - Fremderlosung Erlosung als gegenwartiges - oder als zukiinftiges Ereinis Erlosung als innerweltlicher Vorgang - oder als solcher, der aus der Welt hinausfiihrt ( in einen neuen Aeon oder aus Jenseits) Erlosung zu Lebzeiten - oder postmortal usf. Das Fragen-Paar: wovon soll erlost werden? und wozu soll die Erlosung fiihren? scheint mir insofern eine brauchbare Sichtungshilfe zu sein, als es nach dem Elementaren fragt: nach Ausgangs- und Endpunkt eines Vorganges. Je nach dem, wovon und woraufhin Erlosung erfolgen soll, bestimmen sich die Mittel zu ihrer Erlangung. Je nachdem verhalt sich aber auch das seelische Klima, in welchem ein Erlosungsvorgang erfolgt, beziehungsweise eine Erlosungserwartung sich ausformt. Der Ausdruck ,,Erlosung", ,,Redemption" wird heute als religionsgeschichtlicher Terminus allgemein angewendet und auf Erscheinungen, die in verschiedenen Kulturkreisen unter verschiedenen Bedingungen zustande kommen. Das Wort bringt aber aus seinem eigenen Kulturkreis, dem der biblischen Religionen, eine bestimmte Sinn- und Vorstellungs-Fiillung mit sich. Erlosung - Redemption ist die vollig

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V. MAAG

adaquate Obersetzung dessen, was hebraisch g 0 'ulla oder pedut meint. Beide Ausdriicke bezeichnen eine Los-kaufung. Sie setzen voraus, class jemand oder etwas unter fremde Verfiigungsgewalt gekommen ist und befreit wird. Sie setzen aber auch einen Dritten voraus, der die Befreiung bewirkt durch eine von ihm erbrachte Leistung. Das ist, welches immer auch die inneren Entwicklungen und Transformationen sein mogen, die sich in der Zeit zwischen dem Auszug Israels aus Aegypten und dem Verfasser der Johannes-Apokalypse vollzogen haben, die Ursubstanz biblischer Erlosungsbegrifflichkeit: class Gott - eventuell unter Zuhilfenahme irgendwelcher W erkzeuge - Erlosung als Heil der Menschen wirkt. Die Septuaginta hat dieses allen biblischen Erlosungsformen Gemeinsame festgehalten, indem sie sich mit ihrem Obersetzungsausdruck &.1toAu"t"pNcrtc; an den Terminus Mcnc; anschliesst, wahrend die Vulgata schon einen christlichen Akzent setzt, indem sie fiir sich vom handelsrechtlich begriindeten Terminus ausgeht, der ein Los-kaufen, die Erbringung eines Kauf-Preises oder Losungs-Preises ins Auge fasst: Die Vulgata iibersetzt diesen Te:minus sachgemass mit einer Zusammensetzung von emere ,,kaufen", namlich mit red-emptio ,,Los-Kauf" ( von red-imere). Wir werden fiir die Anwendung auf andere Kulturkreise zunachst den Begriff von seinem sehr pragnanten biblischen Inhalt entleeren miissen. Es ist also eine hermeneutische Pflicht, die wir uns auferlegen miissen, wenn wir mit diesen Wortern umgehen, sie frei zu halten fiir die jeweilige, aus einem ganz anderen Kreis als dem ihres Herkommens zu beziehende Sinn-Fiillung. Wenn hier nach Erlosung gefragt wird, wird gefragt: In welcher Weise fiillen sich Worter wie Redemption oder Erlosung mit Sinn und Vorstellungsgehalt, wenn sie iiber die von ihnen visierten Sachverhalte Auskunft geben sollen. Anders gesagt: Wir werden - statt einfach mehrdeutige Termini anzuwenden - umschreiben miissen. Das diirfte ja eine Hauptbemiihung dieser Tagung sein. Voraussetzung fiir alles Erlosungsdenken, alle Erlosungssehnsucht ist das Empfinden, in Not oder Elend zu sein. Das gilt allgemein, ohne Unterschied des Kultur-Milieus: Erlosung ist Behebung einer Not, Aufhebung einer Notlage. Wo die Religion kollektiv ist, kann von Erlosung im religiosen Sinne our die Rede sein im Zusammenhang mit einem kollektiven Unbehagen.

Bleeker and Werblowsky - 978-90-04-37809-4 Downloaded from Brill.com06/23/2021 01:54:56PM via free access

ERLOSUNG WOVON? ERLOSUNG WOZU?

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Setzen wir mit unseren Beobachtungen zuerst bei den sedentaren Kulturformen ein. Fiir sie ist, ob es sich um archaische Stamme oder um National- bzw. Reichsstaaten handelt,