The Theocracy Of Ancient Israel And Its Main Features

Since the exodus from Egypt and settlement in Canaan, the ancient Israelites had their own areas of life gradually. Anointed Saul make the first King after the Period of Judges, which marked the ancient Israelites established their own independent sovereign state. The history of this period, as an important part of Jewish political history, is a proposition which cannot be avoided for studying of Jewish political tradition and understanding Jewish politics and thoughts. At present, the study of the academic community at home about ancient Israel is only in the initial stages of exploration, and they mainly focused on the monarchy of the ancient Israel’s kingdom and the national philosophy during the period of and the kingdom. However, there are not enough researches on Israel religion and political system in the period of Moses and the Judges, and the theoretical system are not perfect at all. This essay was made up this blank to explain those problems.Firstly, this thesis defines the concept of theocracy combined with Josephus. Spinoza and others’theory of theocracy. It also determines the beginning and ending time of the ancient Israel theocracy combined with the historic records of the ancient Israel in Hebrew Bible. Besides, this paper sorts out the developing sequence of the ancient Israeli theocracy.Secondly, by comparing with the relationship between politics and religion of the ancient Egypt and the ancient Babylon in the third chapter, and the combination of the analysis of ancient Israel’s theocracy of Spinoza’s, the paper further discusses the main features of the theocracy in ancient Israel and highlights the unique features of the ancient Israel theocracy. In Chapter4, the thesis analyzes the reasons why the theocracy of ancient Israel collapsed ultimately, and then it illustrates the important impact on Jewish heritage of their faith and the national development.Finally, in the conclusion section, the historical development of the ancient Israel theocracy, the main features and the advantages and disadvantages are summarized. Then the paper makes a simple analysis of its future potential of church-state relations by combining with domestic political realities of modern Israel.