Challenges to Authority that are Significant, But Fall Short of Being Federal or Constitutional

Dan Elazar was overly generous with respect to claims of constitutionalism, republicanism, and federalism in the Hebrew Bible, and too free with the term “federalism” for post-biblical Jewish polities. Yet numerous politically relevant episodes in the Bible indicate that the regimes of ancient Israel were something other than purely authoritarian, and modem Israel, though highly centralized in its formal arrangements, tolerates substantial give and take in the operations of national and local authorities. Copyright , Oxford University Press.