Zionism through Christian Lenses

Ecumenical Perspectives on the Promised Land

Burnett

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781621895954
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Dear to the hearts of many Christians is the land of the Bible, which today is convulsed by strife. Contradictory claims about the past, present, and future of this land can bewilder us. The essays in this volume invite Christians of every denomination to share in perspectives that are solidly grounded in Scripture and tradition, yet serve as alternatives to the currently prevailing approaches. A Lutheran, two Roman Catholics, two Episcopalians (one of whom is also a member of the American Baptist Church), an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and a Congregational (United Church of Christ) pastor explore the ramifications, for today's ongoing crisis, of ancient Israel's Covenant, of the early church's theological insights, and of the post-Reformation experiences of various branches of Christianity.

Zionism and the Scriptures

1

How Should the People and Land of Israel be Understood in the Light of the Covenant?

Daryl P. Domning

Zionism, whether Jewish or Christian, looks to the return of the people of Israel to the Near Eastern land they occupied in biblical times. Zionism as a modern social, political, and religious phenomenon is inescapably based on theological rationales; and to understand these rationales it is necessary to examine their biblical roots in the idea of God’s covenant with Israel and the importance of the land in the context of that covenant.

In brief, the particular covenant with Israel as described in the Bible was first instituted as an agreement between two parties, God and Abraham. Each wanted something out of this agreement: Abraham wanted progeny, and God wished to formalize a fellowship with human beings. Abraham soon got what he wanted; the entire remainder of salvation history has been the working out of whether and to what extent he and his descendants would deliver on his pledge of allegiance to God. A persistent issue in this drama has been the seemingly divergent ways in which God and human beings have understood the role played in that pledge by the land of Israel itself.

In interpreting this history I draw on what will no doubt appear as a novel and unexpected source of insight: evolutionary biology. I have argued elsewhere1 that the theology of human nature, and human sinfulness, can be properly viewed only through the lens of human evolution. In our present, Neo-Darwinian understanding of evolution, survival and adaptation of species come about through the interplay of mutation and natural selection; and natural selection ensures that all living organisms give first priority to their own survival and reproduction. This self-centered orientation must be seen by believers as part of the creative process and of the creation that God pronounced “very good” (Gen 1:31). But on the human level (where genetically programmed behavior is supplemented and often reinforced by learned behavior, culture, and free will) it also makes possible (indeed, statistically inevitable) the sinfulness that has been part of human nature from its beginning. Much of human history, including the Bible story, is just what evolutionary theory would have predicted; and against this contrasting background, the parts that it would not have predicted stand out all the more sharply.

I should also note that in the following discussion, I do not take a position on whether particular biblical passages (such as the story of Abraham) are strictly historical in all respects. Rather, it suffices that the biblical writers viewed their lessons as normative for the believing community for whom they wrote. It is our task here to discern what those lessons are, for them and for us.

The Covenant with Israel

The earliest expressions of Israel’s belief in the divine covenant which gave the nation being are found in the stories collected in the book of Genesis. These are commonly accepted as having been assembled and edited into their present form around the time of the Babylonian captivity (585–539 BCE), when return to their previous homeland was understandably a preoccupation of the Hebrew people. Throughout Genesis and the remainder of the Hebrew (and Christian) Scriptures, there is, I think, a consistent (albeit developing) portrayal of how the covenant was viewed by its initiator: God.

The Israelites understood that God, by exercise of sovereign power, created (bara’) the world, with the intention of bringing into being humans who would then enjoy fellowship with God (Gen 1–2). This fellowship is variously described metaphorically by Genesis as the Garden of Eden, by Isaiah as a peaceable kingdom, and by Jesus as the reign of God. Although human sinfulness was and is an obstacle to this fellowship, throughout salvation history God has held out to humanity the promise of its attainment.

The first expressions of this promise are portrayed as covenants with all humanity, symbolized by Adam (Gen 1–2) and by Noah (Gen 8:21–22). The next step in the establishment of this fellowship was God’s creation, as it were out of nothing, of a particular people that had not existed before as a distinct group. (The same word bara’ used in Genesis for God’s creation of the world is also used, for example in Isa 43:1, for God’s creation of Israel.)2 As the story is presented, God’s chosen instrument for this creation was Abram (Abraham), out of whom God promised to “make a great nation”—though not for that nation’s exclusive benefit, but as a means of blessing the entire human race (Gen 12:2–3; 18:18; 22:18; cf. Isa 49:6). In terms of New Testament imagery (Matt 13:33; Luke 13:21), it was to act like yeast in the world.

It is natural for human beings, as for all living things (thanks to Darwinian natural selection, as noted above), to seek to reproduce themselves. Abram was no exception: like every man of his time, his standing in his own eyes, in society, and even (though unconsciously) in evolutionary history itself, depended on the number of his offspring. This natural state of affairs provided the opening for the initiative God wished to take: since Abram’s wife Sarai was barren (Gen 11:30), God’s promise of progeny was the answer to his deepest prayer (Gen 15:2), so he was ready to respond to God’s gratuitous proposal of an explicit covenant (Gen 12:1–4).

This promise of progeny was renewed repeatedly (Gen 13:14–17; 15:1–5; 17:2–7, 16–21; 18:9–15); and to it was added, in the most solemn fashion, that of possession of the land of Canaan, where Abram then resided (Gen 12:7; 15:7–21; 17:8)—territory and its resources, of course, being the necessary Darwinian means of supporting one’s offspring. Abram up till then had been a nomad who had left his extended family in Haran (Gen 11:27—12:5) and had no real estate or grazing rights to call his own, but only what he could acquire by diplomacy, trade, or conquest (Gen 12–14). So the promise of land was as existentially vital to him as that of offspring.

In due course, God added a significant proviso to what had hitherto been a one-sided promise—stating, in fact, what had been God’s intent all along: “I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying . . . as a permanent possession; and I will be their God. . . . On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages” (Gen 17:7–9; emphasis added).

Thus, the fully-stated agreement took the form of a so-called “vassal” (or “ruler”) covenant; it called for God to provide protection and other benefits (descendants and land), and for Abram and his descendants (the vassals) to provide hesed (love, loyalty, and obedience).3 What God wanted from the bargain, it turned out, was the allegiance of the newly created nation, so that it might carry out God’s plans for human salvation—and do so specifically through their ethical behavior: “I have singled [Abraham] out that he may direct his sons and his posterity to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord may carry into effect for Abraham the promises he made about him” (Gen 18:19; emphasis added). Thus the promises were conditioned on the nation’s doing justice. This requirement of reciprocity was solemnized by the rule of circumcision, as well as by renaming the couple Abraham and Sarah (Gen 17:5, 9–15).

Since Sarah still remained childless, however, they both came to doubt this promise of progeny, which indeed was not fulfilled for many years. They ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Part 1: Zionism and the Scriptures
• Chapter 1: How Should the People and Land of Israel be Understood in the Light of the Covenant?
• Chapter 2: Not Like the Nations
• Part 2: Zionism and Ancient Christianity
• Chapter 3: Early Christians
• Part 3: Zionism and Modern Christianity
• Chapter 4: “Why the Caged Bird Sings”
• Chapter 5: Praiseworthy Intentions, Unintended Consequences
• Chapter 6: Catholic Social Teaching and Vatican Relations with Israelis and Palestinians
• Chapter 7: The New Jerusalem