The Political Function of Revelation: Lessons from the Hebrew Bible

This article examines the political theory of revelation in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, particularly the theophany at Sinai. Revelation occurs when God communicates information to human beings. The biblical narratives use the modality of a revelation to signal the importance of the message being conveyed. They also identify techniques for limiting revelation’s destabilizing potential: embedding, which restricts God’s ability to change his mind; authentication, which tests the validity of revelations; and access rules which privilege political elites as recipients of God’s word.