If the relationship between man and God were supposed to consist of man’s acceptance of a paragraph of propositions that “raises among ourselves no o… - Yoram Hazony

The purpose of the biblical editors, in gathering together such diverse and often sharply conflicting texts, was not to construct a unitary work with an unequivocal message. It was rather to assemble a work capable of capturing and reflecting a given tradition of inquiry so readers could strive to understand the various perspectives embraced by this tradition, and in so doing build up an understanding of their own.

The fact is that man’s mind is limited, and his understanding only partial. The biblical narrative makes this point unequivocally with respect to Moses, in reporting that he could not see God’s face, but only his back. And it was no less true of the other prophets of Israel, who saw things in different ways because each of them was limited in his understanding, and to his own point of vantage.

This same conviction that one has grasped the ultimate political truth and that all must now accept it likewise characterized Lenin’s thought and Soviet imperialism during its entire seventy-year course. And it appears again in our own time in the doctrines of European Union, which finds no satisfaction in the rule of one nation, but seeks constantly to impose an ever-greater uniformity on all nations in accordance with the political truths its bureaucrats regard as universally evident.