Political Freedom

Abstract According to a traditional history of ideas, political freedom began in ancient Greece. In this chapter, I widen the scope and discuss facets of political freedom in the ancient Near East. In ancient Near Eastern cultures, various democratic elements can be found in different regions and in different times in different ways. In these cultures, as has been shown in Chapter 11, the king could enact laws of manumission not only for single individuals but for the entire collective. Some ancient Near Eastern cities developed aspects and structures that were autonomous and democratic. In addition, explicit ideas of freedom from outside rule (imperial rule) and oppressive inside rule (tyranny) could establish themselves, among others, with the help of the ideas of Zeus the Liberator and Yhwh the Liberator. In ancient Israel, this led to the idea of a constitutional monarchy with a meek king obedient to the law. The existence of public debates and democratic knowledge constructions reveal further important features of political freedom. The idea of freedom through obeying the law alone (and not an imperial ruler or inner tyrant) is a Greek and Israelite idea from the same time period. Both the Greek’s and the Hebrew’s vision of liberty is one from tyrannic kingship, and both people emphasize obeying the law alone.