The Saint 71
After the slaughter of the Amalekites, Saul is no longer holy in
the Lord’s sight. He is not the valiant slayer of men and women that
Yahweh requires. Soon David will take his place in the aff ections
of God.
Like the culture of the Romans, the culture of the Jews is not a
truly conducive site for the new soul- doctrine of universal love to
fl ourish. The Jews conceived of themselves as a nation and a race.
They are God’s chosen people. God shows them his par tic u lar
favor. He confers his blessing upon them, though often he is com-
pelled then to retract it. Much is asked of the Chosen People. They
must rise to ethical standards that set them apart from their neigh-
bors. They must obey the commandments and worship a harsh but
bountiful invisible god who will tolerate no graven images and no
other gods. Much is given to the Jews as well. Manna appears every
day in the desert ( unless and until the people take up more than a
day’s rations); the trumpets blow the walls of Jericho down; Daniel
survives the lion’s den; Jonah lives on in the belly of the whale; David
takes down the giant Goliath; Sampson smites legions of Philistines
with the jawbone of an ass. Everywhere Israelites wander they fi nd
opposition, sometimes violent. But they are steadied by the knowl-
edge that there is one God presiding above other gods, and that God
has chosen them over all peoples on the earth.
In his most central and fresh teachings, Jesus seems closer to the
Buddha and to the Hindu sages, and even to Confucius with his
ideal of the sainted civil servant, than he is to any prominent fi gure
in the Hebrew Bible. Yet for all of his originality within the context
of the Romans and the Jews, Jesus takes pains to bind himself to
the Old Testament tradition, at least overtly. Despite all the tension
involved in his relation to the Hebrew past, Jesus does not want to
break completely with it. Jesus seeks to maintain continuity, even
as he embodies disjunction. This traditional antitradition is not