Whispered Utopia: Dreams,Agendas, and Theocratic Aspirations in Yehud

ABSTRACT

To provide collective meaning to displacement and subsequent immigration, the authors of the Persian-period Hebrew texts such as Ezra-Nehemiah construct a schema of theocratic utopia. To be clear, however, the expressed theocratic aspirations of the golah community can only be de-scribed in utopian terms because a theocracy had never existed previously in the histories of Israel or Judah. Using Thomas More's model of Utopia this article compares the agendas and aspirations recorded in relevant Persian-period Hebrew texts to selected components or structures of Utopia. It will al-so express a working definition of theocracy and explain why it should be read in utopian terms. While the similarities will be informative, the differ-ences will reveal different visions of utopia; More's will stem from a more social-economic base while that portrayed in the Hebrew texts will stem from a particular religious base. For both, visions of a utopian society are encour-aged by circumstances in which conflict appears to balefully outweigh con-sensus.

A utopia is literally a “nowhere land,” an ideal society in another place, where justice prevails, where people are perfectly content, and from which sadness, pain and violence have been banned. Utopias, although fictions, are characterized by a conviction that the envisioned society will in fact be with-out problems. Other distinguishing features of utopias are that they are ex-tremely critical in regard to the present society, and contain the “blueprints” for a completely new state. (Marius de Geus)

The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men, with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial utopian dream. (David Ben Gurion, NY Herald Tribune 28 Apr 63)

Vtopia priscis dicta, ob infrequentiam, Nunc ciuitatis aemula Platonicae,

Fortasse uictrix, (nam quod illa literis Deliniauit, hoc ego una praestiti, Viris & opibus, optimisque legibus) Eutopia merito sum uocanda nomine. (Anemolius [in T. More, Utopia])