הרצאת המכון ללימודים מתקדמים: כיצד הפך אלוהי ישראל לאל אוניברסלי?
מרצה אורח: פרופ' קונרד שמיד, פרופסור למקרא העברי וליהדות העתיקה, אוניברסיטת ציריך, שווייץ
HOW DID THE GOD OF ISRAEL BECOME A UNIVERSAL SOVEREIGN?
The Institute of Advanced Studies is honored to welcome Professor Konrad Schmid, Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism at the University of Zurich, Switzerland.
In this lecture, “The Birth of an Imperial God: The Political Theology of the Early Isaiah Tradition in Its Neo-Assyrian Context,” Professor Schmid will explore the emergence of an “imperial God” in the book of Isaiah, tracing a decisive shift in the intellectual history of ancient Israel from a geographically provincial deity to a universal sovereign. Drawing on Thorkild Jacobsen’s notion of the “politicomorphism” of ancient Near Eastern literature, he will examine key passages in Isaiah as a reception and transformation of Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology, and compare this development with the earlier Amos tradition. The lecture will consider how the imperial conception of God in the early Isaiah tradition developed out of an earlier understanding of a geographically provincial deity.
COURSE DETAILS
When: Wednesday, 2 December 2026, 12:00
Where: Room 208, Rosenberg Building
Light refreshments will be served before the lecture.
The lecture will be conducted in English.
MORE ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Konrad Schmid is Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. He studied theology at the universities of Zurich, Greifswald, and Munich and received his Ph.D. in Theology from the University of Zurich in 1995. From 1999 to 2002, he was Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He has served as a Member in Residence at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton and as a Fellow of the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, where he co-directed a research group on Pentateuchal theory. In 2017, he was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Since 2017, he has served as president of the Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft für Theologie and as a member of the National Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation. His research focuses on the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Judaism, with particular interest in the Pentateuch and its legal traditions, biblical historiography, and the intellectual history and theology of ancient Israel in its ancient Near Eastern context. His publications include Genesis and the Moses Story: Israel’s Dual Origins in the Hebrew Bible, The Old Testament: A Literary History, Is There Theology in the Hebrew Bible?, A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible, and, with Jens Schröter, The Making of the Bible: From the First Fragments to Sacred Scripture.
FULL ABSTRACT
THE BIRTH OF AN IMPERIAL GOD: THE POLITICAL THEOLOGY OF THE EARLY ISAIAH TRADITION IN ITS NEO-ASSYRIAN CONTEXT
This paper argues that the book of Isaiah witnesses the emergence of an “imperial God” which denotes a decisive shift in the intellectual history of ancient Israel from a provincial deity to a universal sovereign who governs the entire then known ancient Near Eastern world. Taking up Thorkild Jacobsen’s notion of the “politicomorphism” of ancient Near Eastern literature, it interprets key Isaiah texts (Isa 7:1–9; 8:6–8; 10:5) as a reception and transformation of Neo-Assyrian imperial ideology. The Isaiah material is then compared with the earlier Amos tradition. The God of Amos remains geographically provincial (even in Amos 1–2) and acts chiefly through natural catastrophe (above all the earthquake) rather than through imperial political powers. That the early Isaiah tradition demonstrably takes up and extends the Amos tradition - most clearly in the reception of Amos in Isaiah 9 - makes the transformation especially striking, since it shows the imperial notion of God developing out of a provincial predecessor.
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