Spinoza | How the Idea of a Chosen People Actually Developed

📚 REFERENCES & RECOMMENDED READING: • George E. Mendenhall, “Covenant Forms in Israelite Tradition,” The Biblical Archaeologist, volume seventeen, nineteen fifty-four. • Jacob Lauinger, “Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty at Tell Tayinat: Text and Commentary,” Journal of Cuneiform Studies, volume sixty-four, twenty twelve. • Bernard M. Levinson and Jeffrey Stackert, “Between the Covenant Code and Esarhaddon’s Succession Treaty: Deuteronomy Thirteen and the Composition of Deuteronomy,” Journal of Ancient Judaism, twenty twelve. • Moshe Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School, Oxford, nineteen seventy-two. • Delbert R. Hillers, Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea, Johns Hopkins University Press, nineteen sixty-nine. • Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, sixteen seventy, chapter three, “On the Vocation of the Hebrews.” • Sacvan Bercovitch, The American Jeremiad, University of Wisconsin Press, nineteen seventy-eight. 🔍 IN THIS VIDEO: We follow the historical trail to understand: • How the idea of a “chosen people” actually took shape — from ancient Near Eastern treaty language, to covenant theology, to exile, to its later transfer into Christianity and American self-understanding. • What the tablets, the Hebrew vocabulary, the prophets, and current scholarship really show about what “chosen” meant at each stage.