Abram’s call

Here’s a wonderful example of the depth of Yoder’s OT discussion: “Primal religion assumes the total known community as the bearer of meaning of sacral history: whether it be the whole village, the tribe, the kingdom of even the empire. The sacralization of life in primal cultures binds and unifies along every axis of possible differentiation. The crown and cult reinforce one another. The agricultural is not separated from the military, the government from the land; the regime is not distinguishable from the people nor any of the people from other people. With the call of Abraham that changes. A part of the whole creation is separate from the whole on the ground not of its intrinsic qualities but by the peculiarly selective wisdom of a distinctly identifiable God.”

With Torah, Israel is given her own form of “primal religion,” but Yoder is right: The call of Abraham is a cut in humanity and human civilization, a break with every tribal, temple, or civic order of ancient man.