Biblical Views: The Pharaoh, the Bible and Liberation (Square)

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After the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February, Google executive Wael Ghonim tweeted: “Good morning, Egypt. I truly missed you for the past 30 years!” This revolution, which was nonviolent and democratic, was an entirely modern phenomenon. But the backdrop of the Great Pyramids and the frequent references to Mubarak as the Last Pharaoh bring to mind a time span much longer than 30 years. The rule of the pharaohs in Egypt began around 3000 B.C.E. In the big picture we’re talking about 5,000 years of authoritarian rule by pharaohs, kings, emperors and dictators. In this long span, it is natural to think of the Biblical Exodus as in some ways a precursor of the latest revolution in Egypt. The plea to Pharaoh, “Let my people go,” would be an apt caption to the scenes of popular demonstrations in Cairo’s Liberation Square.

Of course, unlike the recent events in Egypt, the Exodus was neither a popular movement nor a democratic revolution. According to the Biblical account, this movement was in fact largely opposed by the Hebrew slaves, who had been worn down by their slave existence and slave mentality. Moses, the liberator chosen by God, had to force them to be free. Even after their liberation, the people were nostalgic about their Egyptian bondage, where at least they had had enough to eat. The stiff-necked Hebrews were not democrats. They essentially exchanged one king—Pharaoh—for another, to whom they owed absolute obedience. Their new king was God, who gave them laws and made them his people.

The idea of liberation from oppression has roots in the Bible, as well as in other ancient Near Eastern cultures. (For example, the worker-gods rebel against the oppressive rule of the high god Enlil in the Babylonian Atrahasis Epic.) The rights of ordinary people, including widows, orphans and laborers, are affirmed in many texts, including royal inscriptions and legal codes. The concept of democracy, however, is not a Biblical or ancient Near Eastern idea. Most governments had an authoritarian ruler—a king, a pharaoh or a local leader (e.g., the Biblical judges).

These forms of government can be described (following Max Weber) as patrimonial rule.¹ In this type of polity, the structure of the patriarchal family—headed by the eldest male—is replicated at each layer of society, including the top layer of the royal “father.” This is the language echoed by Mubarak in his last speech, which was spectacularly unsuccessful. He referred to himself as the “father” of Egypt and the people as his “children.” This is precisely the model of patrimonial rule, where the king is the father of all the people. In the ancient world, the king was appointed by a high god. So, in the Bible, God appoints David to be king, and the government is referred to as the “House of David.” David’s authority as king over his “household” was based on God’s will.

Democracy was a foreign idea in the world of ancient Egypt and Israel. It was a Greek invention, originating in ancient Athens and dismantled by the Macedonian kings who succeeded Alexander the Great (c. 322 B.C.E.). The idea lay dormant for roughly 2,000 years until it was revived by some Enlightenment thinkers, most importantly Baruch Spinoza, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson.

The greatest obstacle to the rise of modern democratic ideals was, perhaps ironically, the Bible. This book that proclaimed “Let my people go” was also the acknowledged basis for the divine right of kings. To oppose the king was to oppose God’s will. Governmental authority flowed from the top down, from God to the king, who ruled the people below him. The first people to question this arrangement and to argue that governmental authority must stem from the people—from the bottom up—had to somehow undermine the Biblical doctrine of the divine right of kings. To do this one had to argue that the Bible was not a sure authority in matters of government.

Two radical thinkers, Thomas Hobbes and Baruch Spinoza, accomplished this by demonstrating that the Biblical books were not written by God but by men, and that the government of Biblical society pertained to the ancient world, not the modern. This move required the invention of modern Biblical scholarship and the development of new ideas about the nature and extent of Biblical authority.² This was a revolution too, but a revolution in thought, which eventually dissolved the Biblical basis of Western political institutions. Spinoza argued that democracy was the best form of government, since it ensured the free exercise of speech and religion that were necessary prerequisites for human freedom. These radical ideas sparked the American and French revolutions, and are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and other legal codes of modern democratic states.

The road to Liberation Square leads from the ancient world of pharaohs and kings to the modern world in which the Bible no longer holds ultimate political authority. Freedom from Pharaoh’s 076oppression was won initially in the Bible, but freedom from authoritative rulers had to wait until the Bible’s own authority was worn down by the radical questions of the freethinkers of the Enlightenment, including several of our Founding Fathers. The Bible had to yield its own political authority in order to prepare the path for freedom.

After the Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak stepped down in February, Google executive Wael Ghonim tweeted: “Good morning, Egypt. I truly missed you for the past 30 years!” This revolution, which was nonviolent and democratic, was an entirely modern phenomenon. But the backdrop of the Great Pyramids and the frequent references to Mubarak as the Last Pharaoh bring to mind a time span much longer than 30 years. The rule of the pharaohs in Egypt began around 3000 B.C.E. In the big picture we’re talking about 5,000 years of authoritarian rule by pharaohs, kings, emperors and dictators. In this long […]