Literary Criticism and Theology of P - Christus Rex

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E. CORTESE
rather generic opinion that P teaches a sort of spiritual divine presence in
human beings, as found in Ex 29,43-46, which, as we have seen, is a central
text in the priestly theology. This seems to be the recent conclusion of Pola,
despite his big effort of appealing to Ezek 20, after his enormous reduction of
the original text of Ex 25-31. And this opinion corresponds to the opinion of
Janowski 21 , based on the prophecy of the new covenant in Ezek 37,26: “I will
set my sanctuary in the midst of them for ever”, which he interprets in the
light of 11,16: “I will be to them (to the people dispersed among the nations)
a temple for a while (lemiqdaå me‘a†)”; it is a kind of divine presence by the
new covenant. Is this a satisfactory interpretation of our priestly texts?
There are many types of divine presence. We do not consider here the
presence of God as the Creator of all things, nor His spiritual presence in the
thoughts of human beings. But rather we concentrate on the special presence
of God among the people of Israel, as the modern Jews also are used to think.
Because of the election, or, as many say, the covenant with Israel, we can
believe that He has a special presence among them. This could be interpreted
either as the privilege, which the non-Jews cannot share, or as the inclusive
grace of God, from which other people can also enjoy.
In whatever way we conceive this relation, it is a shift from the right way
of interpreting the biblical message on the divine presence in the tent. We do
not deny the particular relation between Israel and God. The relation of a
father or a mother to the son, or that of a man or a wife to the partner, does
not necessarily imply the idea of their real presence. So it might be better to
distinguish carefully the concepts of “relation” and “presence”. When OT
speaks of the presence of God in the tent, this signifies something new. Israel
had already a particular relation with God, either by the divine election before
Sinai, or by the covenant stipulated on the mountain. We may better call this
a relation, not a presence, in order to maintain the singularity of the presence
of God in the tent or by means of it in Israel. Ex 29,43ff. discloses this
particular presence rather than the previous one.
3. Theological presuppositions. If we overlook such a distinction, we
would not be able to understand rightly the Sinaitic message of P. It consists
exactly in omitting the old message (J, E and D) of the particular relation
between God and Israel reached by the Sinaitic covenant. To the reasons of
such a Priestly omission and the corresponding modern debate, we shall come
back later.
21. Particularly in the article “ ‘Ich will in euer Mitte wohnen’. Struktur und Genese der
exilischen Schekina-Theologie”, JBT 2 (1987) 175-193 (now in Id., Gottesgegenwart, 119-
147).