Pete Enns is perhaps my favorite writer and blogger, and I am happy to share this article with you today. Pete says…
I was taught in seminary and graduate school, as were many others of my generation and several before that, that the Old Testament is too diverse for it to have a “central point.” As soon as you think you’ve found a central theme, it either doesn’t work (e.g., covenant or holiness) or it’s too broad to be of much use (e.g., God).
Some themes, however, are right there in your face, and one of them is getting higher and higher on my list: LAND–namely the promised land of Canaan.
That may bore you. That may not sound terribly spiritual. Too bad. Land is a major idea the Bible keeps on the front burner. Actually, I may even be understating things a bit.
The promise to receive land, getting it, how to hold on to it, losing it and getting it back, and how not to lose it again. That describes the main storyline of the OT.
Land is already central in God’s promise to Abraham…
For the rest of this article just click on the link below:
Jesus Without Baggage 
He’s one of my favorites! He has really helped me to have “Jesus without baggage.” Thank you for sharing! 🙂
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Esther, he is definitely one of my favorites as well!
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Interesting that even today, land is still the at the center point of turmoil in the Middle East.
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Ken, this is true. And it is based on those same ancient Old Testament promises.
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Don’t know where Enns will be going with this land theme, but, to me, it leads directly into perhaps the key socioeconomic issue of our time: personal debt. Apparently, one of the conditions imposed by God upon Israel, so that it might keep its land and prosper, is that there be periodic erasures of accumulated debt (Jubilees). This would allow people to start afresh in their economic dealings with one another and prevent devolution into debt peonage and pernicious social stratification, the natural consequences of entrenched and expanding wealth division. I’m not familiar with Enns, so it will be interesting to me to see if he goes there and, if so, what he does with it.
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Newton, I think you raise an important point, though I am not sure Jubilees was ever observed. Pete does not address it in this article–but he writes a lot of articles about the OT.
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I’m no historian of jubilee and other forms of debt relief, Tim, but there does appear to be something more real and concrete to the phenomenon than, say, in the legends of Robin Hood or King Arthur. Recently, I read an article by a Modern Monetary Theory economist who went into this history of jubilee in great detail, but I can’t put my finger on that piece right now. In the meantime, here’s a newspaper article that mentions some of the material included in that MMT presentation and even more interesting info from modern times.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11383374/The-biggest-debt-write-offs-in-the-history-of-the-world.html
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Newton, this is not something I have researched or studied, so you may very well be correct. Also, I enjoyed the very interesting article you linked.
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Tim, here’s another short article on the jubilee topic, in case you’re interested in exploring it a bit more. Still looking for that larger piece mentioned in my other reply.
https://michael-hudson.com/2018/12/ft-wiping-the-slate-clean-is-it-time-to-reconsider-debt-forgiveness/
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Here’s an even better article that brings in Jesus. I’ll stop now and move on.
https://michael-hudson.com/2018/11/lessons-from-babylonia-for-todays-student-crisis/
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Newton, thanks for the two additional articles on ancient debt relief. Interesting stuff!
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Didn’t the jubilee concept come from issues surrounding the conquest of Canaan? Is there historical evidence that jubilee years were ever celebrated? Can’t a good case be made be made that Jesus fulfilled the jubilee once and for all?
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Quadratus, I am not really familiar with actual Jubilee history; so I have no answers for any of the questions you ask–except that I, also, question whether Jubilee was ever kept. Even Wikipedia does not answer this question.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)
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Newton, the problem with cancelling debts every seven years is that it would tempt people to take on a large debts, knowing that they could effectively default on them in a few years time, so it would encourage debt.
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Tim, I read Peter’s piece and he may be right. But I suspect that God never promised Israel to the Jews – it has been disputed ever since. It is disputed today. Divine Right has never been a sustainable argument. The only resolution is peaceful coexistence. I pray for that.
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Michael, I think you are probably right but they certainly THOUGHT he did. And as you say, it still causes problems today–Palestinian oppression.
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Michael. Totally agree with you. This was written by men, from the land in question, to lay claim to the land for all time, and just look at the problems their lie has caused.
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Sorry to maybe seem blunt, but I thought that was obvious. Having read the OT a few times and having been to enough talks on “God’s People in God’s Place at God’s time” is not hard to realise that the OT is fixated on the geographical centrality of certain places to the “People of God”.
Where I would be very careful is putting any “theological” overlay on the current discourse on anything re the State of Israel. Israel was set up, dreamed of and founded as a secular entity and still is. There are also many people of religious faith who live there and input greatly into the socio-political life of the country but they are still a minority. We may look at the situation and overlay our own “religious” thoughts on the matter but we really need to be aware we’re doing this.
For me the Bible needs to be read for its metaphor, not just the surface text. The attachment to land and place speaks to me of a physical permanency and security, “belonging” somewhere and being held there in security. As a physical being (and no doubt on some Freudian Level!) I can relate to that as being held and hugged closely. In a wider context places me being held by God.
The NT talks to me of the future, when we will physically be with God in a place where he has prepared a room for each of us (imagine that, him choosing the curtains and everything!). So the OT gives us a look back at the roots of this thing, a yearning for security, the NT shows us the future when this security will be made sure. All we need to do in the meantime is try and slap as much of what we hope the future brings onto what the present gives us, I.e. attempt to heal the World and ourselves in the continuous need for healing.
Reading any of the Bible for apocalyptic ways of how our current World situation sets us in time with some premillennialist vision of great upheaval is really not helpful.
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Ross, I really like you final two points: “All we need to do in the meantime is try and slap as much of what we hope the future brings onto what the present gives us, I.e. attempt to heal the World and ourselves in the continuous need for healing.” I very much agree!
“Reading any of the Bible for apocalyptic ways of how our current World situation sets us in time with some premillennialist vision of great upheaval is really not helpful.” Again, I agree–not helpful at all. But I would go even further to say that it is extremely harmful in many ways.
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Ross, part of the insecurity would come from living in a land that formed the main corridor between Assyria and Egypt, with successive armies passing through to attack their most powerful enemies: Assyrians, Egyptians, Babylonians and Persians, Alexander the Great and his successors, right up to the Romans.
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As an addendum, the nations of Poland and Prussia had a similar problem, because they were caught between three superpowers in Europe. That made them pour resources into armies, and, in the case of Prussia, become the dominant force in an older alliance.
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