Israel: Tough Questions
... some of the ‘tough questions’ that I have been grappling with before, during and after my visit to Israel in May 2017.
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1. But is it true? The historicity of scripture and location
Since I’ve been back home and telling people about going to this or that church built on a place where this or that happened, the most common thing that people say is “well, supposedly”. It can’t be just that my friends are a bunch of sceptics. I suspect that many kiwis respond the same way, as in, ‘Really?!’. It’s the ‘Yeah Right!’ at the heart of the kiwi soul. By nature we are suspicious of authority, suspicious of truth claims. By nature we are suspicious of institutions, especially religious ones, especially foreign ones. Besides, the notion that anyone might know exactly where something happened 2 millennia ago is simply preposterous. Isn’t it?
What is astonishing about visiting Israel is the depth of solid archaeological evidence for most of the revered sites. The events that we read about in the Bible really did actually happen, in actual places, and you can actually go there and see them. Even as I write this I feel myself pushing against the flow of my instinctive scepticism. Can this really be true? I guess that most kiwis these days probably consider Jesus to be a semi-mythological figure; there’s doubt that he even existed at all. The dominant view is that the church probably made most of it up. As for the pilgrimage sites, surely someone sometime just picked a spot, stuck a church on it, and invented a connection with scripture.
It was frankly shocking for my kiwi liberal-bred inner cynic to stand there beside a wall of rock out of which Jesus’ tomb was dug. Historically there is no doubt that the crucifixion event described in all four gospels happened there, at that very place. To be honest, it is confronting. There’s no room for the insulation of aloof scepticism.
There is plenty of archaeological evidence behind the many other sites visited by pilgrims for 2 millennia. The olive trees Jesus wept under are still alive 2,000 years later. The stone walls of house that Peter lived in in Capernaum are still there by the lake shore.
What fascinates me was how people remembered the sites of biblical events in those early centuries, when the church was under sustained attack from both Romans and Jews. By 326, when Constantine won control over Palestine and sent his mother Helena, the early church had preserved memory of what happened where. So Helena was able to build dozens of churches in the confidence that each was historically accurate, preserving and honouring the exact site of biblical events. I need to do more research into the church in Palestine in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
Peter’s house gives a fascinating glimpse into this; archaeologists discovered in Capernaum an evolving story, of a 1st century house that became a house church and was enlarged and added to over the years. Read all about it on this Biblical Arcaeology website:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/the-house-of-peter-the-home-of-jesus-in-capernaum/
In the years immediately following Jesus’ death, the function of the house changed dramatically. The house’s main room was completely plastered over from floor to ceiling—a rarity for houses of the day. At about the same time, the house’s pottery, which had previously been household cooking pots and bowls, now consisted entirely of large storage jars and oil lamps. Such radical alterations indicate that the house no longer functioned as a residence but instead had become a place for communal gatherings, possibly even the first christian gatherings, a key factor in how Christianity began. As with many Biblical archeology discoveries, often the small details most convincingly tie ancient material remains to Biblical events and characters.
For instance, the excavators found that during the ensuing centuries, the plastered room from the original house had been renovated and converted into the central hall of a rudimentary church. The room’s old stone walls were buttressed by a newly built two-story arch that, in turn, supported a new stone roof. The room was even replastered and painted over with floral and geometric designs of various colors.
This simple church building, helpful in determining how Christianity began, survived for more than 300 years before it was finally replaced in the fifth century by a well-built octagonal martyrium church. Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house of Peter that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church.
And these days there is a modern church built suspended in mid-air almost hovering above the site, with a glass floor in the middle where you can see down into Peter’s house.
Other sites, such as Joseph and Mary’s house in Nazareth, were not used as churches in the first 3 centuries; that spot was used as a tomb rather than reused as a house for someone else. Sure, it is possible that when Helena came asking where Jesus lived as a child, some ingenius local sold her a story and some land for a price. But it seems far more likely that the Christian community in Nazareth had preserved the story around the place, and that everyone in the town knew that that was ‘the house that Joseph built’.
Where we run into problems with the historicity of the Bible is not with the places themselves, but with the timing of things. A classic example is the birth narratives. Matthew and Luke agree on where Jesus was born. But they disagree significantly about when. Matthew pegs it in the time of King Herod, who plays a major role in the story. Luke records that it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. They cannot both be right. Quirinius was not made governor until 6AD, well after Herod had died after an agonisingly painful illness in 4BC.
The gospel writers clearly were not that worried about chronological narrative; they freely rearranged the material they had received into their own flow. They all end up in Jerusalem in Passover week but they take quite different pathways to get there.
During the 20th century biblical scholars have pulled scripture apart, every word, every dot, struggling with this question of what actually happened. Some have set out to disprove the lot of it. Archaelologists have pulled the land apart, carefully photographing and measuring and dusting off the dirt of the centuries looking for stones set by human hand and broken bits of this and that. Many more sites remain unexplored, their treasures of history still buried beneath homes and mosques and churches.
For me, I am convinced of the historical accuracy of most of the biblical narratives and the sites that honour them today. We have to confront our own inner cynic and find ways to connect with a sceptical culture.
Since I’ve been back home and telling people about going to this or that church built on a place where this or that happened, the most common thing that people say is “well, supposedly”. It can’t be just that my friends are a bunch of sceptics. I suspect that many kiwis respond the same way, as in, ‘Really?!’. It’s the ‘Yeah Right!’ at the heart of the kiwi soul. By nature we are suspicious of authority, suspicious of truth claims. By nature we are suspicious of institutions, especially religious ones, especially foreign ones. Besides, the notion that anyone might know exactly where something happened 2 millennia ago is simply preposterous. Isn’t it?
What is astonishing about visiting Israel is the depth of solid archaeological evidence for most of the revered sites. The events that we read about in the Bible really did actually happen, in actual places, and you can actually go there and see them. Even as I write this I feel myself pushing against the flow of my instinctive scepticism. Can this really be true? I guess that most kiwis these days probably consider Jesus to be a semi-mythological figure; there’s doubt that he even existed at all. The dominant view is that the church probably made most of it up. As for the pilgrimage sites, surely someone sometime just picked a spot, stuck a church on it, and invented a connection with scripture.
It was frankly shocking for my kiwi liberal-bred inner cynic to stand there beside a wall of rock out of which Jesus’ tomb was dug. Historically there is no doubt that the crucifixion event described in all four gospels happened there, at that very place. To be honest, it is confronting. There’s no room for the insulation of aloof scepticism.
There is plenty of archaeological evidence behind the many other sites visited by pilgrims for 2 millennia. The olive trees Jesus wept under are still alive 2,000 years later. The stone walls of house that Peter lived in in Capernaum are still there by the lake shore.
What fascinates me was how people remembered the sites of biblical events in those early centuries, when the church was under sustained attack from both Romans and Jews. By 326, when Constantine won control over Palestine and sent his mother Helena, the early church had preserved memory of what happened where. So Helena was able to build dozens of churches in the confidence that each was historically accurate, preserving and honouring the exact site of biblical events. I need to do more research into the church in Palestine in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
Peter’s house gives a fascinating glimpse into this; archaeologists discovered in Capernaum an evolving story, of a 1st century house that became a house church and was enlarged and added to over the years. Read all about it on this Biblical Arcaeology website:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/biblical-archaeology-sites/the-house-of-peter-the-home-of-jesus-in-capernaum/
In the years immediately following Jesus’ death, the function of the house changed dramatically. The house’s main room was completely plastered over from floor to ceiling—a rarity for houses of the day. At about the same time, the house’s pottery, which had previously been household cooking pots and bowls, now consisted entirely of large storage jars and oil lamps. Such radical alterations indicate that the house no longer functioned as a residence but instead had become a place for communal gatherings, possibly even the first christian gatherings, a key factor in how Christianity began. As with many Biblical archeology discoveries, often the small details most convincingly tie ancient material remains to Biblical events and characters.
For instance, the excavators found that during the ensuing centuries, the plastered room from the original house had been renovated and converted into the central hall of a rudimentary church. The room’s old stone walls were buttressed by a newly built two-story arch that, in turn, supported a new stone roof. The room was even replastered and painted over with floral and geometric designs of various colors.
This simple church building, helpful in determining how Christianity began, survived for more than 300 years before it was finally replaced in the fifth century by a well-built octagonal martyrium church. Octagonal martyria were built to commemorate an important site, such as the original house of Peter that once stood here. The inner sanctum of the octagonal building was built directly above the remains of the very room of the first-century house that had formed the central hall of the earlier church.
And these days there is a modern church built suspended in mid-air almost hovering above the site, with a glass floor in the middle where you can see down into Peter’s house.
Other sites, such as Joseph and Mary’s house in Nazareth, were not used as churches in the first 3 centuries; that spot was used as a tomb rather than reused as a house for someone else. Sure, it is possible that when Helena came asking where Jesus lived as a child, some ingenius local sold her a story and some land for a price. But it seems far more likely that the Christian community in Nazareth had preserved the story around the place, and that everyone in the town knew that that was ‘the house that Joseph built’.
Where we run into problems with the historicity of the Bible is not with the places themselves, but with the timing of things. A classic example is the birth narratives. Matthew and Luke agree on where Jesus was born. But they disagree significantly about when. Matthew pegs it in the time of King Herod, who plays a major role in the story. Luke records that it was during the reign of Emperor Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. They cannot both be right. Quirinius was not made governor until 6AD, well after Herod had died after an agonisingly painful illness in 4BC.
The gospel writers clearly were not that worried about chronological narrative; they freely rearranged the material they had received into their own flow. They all end up in Jerusalem in Passover week but they take quite different pathways to get there.
During the 20th century biblical scholars have pulled scripture apart, every word, every dot, struggling with this question of what actually happened. Some have set out to disprove the lot of it. Archaelologists have pulled the land apart, carefully photographing and measuring and dusting off the dirt of the centuries looking for stones set by human hand and broken bits of this and that. Many more sites remain unexplored, their treasures of history still buried beneath homes and mosques and churches.
For me, I am convinced of the historical accuracy of most of the biblical narratives and the sites that honour them today. We have to confront our own inner cynic and find ways to connect with a sceptical culture.
2. Miracle or catastrophe?
The week Ben and I were in Israel marked the 79th anniversary of the establishment of Israel. In May 1948 Jewish leaders signed the Declaration of Independence, ending British occupation and triggering the Arab-Israeli war. Blue and white flags and pennants were flying across the city, and people were out enjoying the parks on their Independence Day holiday.
I came to Israel mindful that many people wiser than I are convinced that the regathering of the Jewish people into the modern State of Israel is God's greatest miracle in modern times. I came to Israel wanting to celebrate Israel. I am astonished by all that Israel has achieved, with people from every country and culture forging a new modern nation based on high ideals and fully participating in the world-wide stage. I am impressed at how Israel was able to revitalise an ancient language into a modern one, and breathe new life into an ancient faith. Given the intense and prolonged level of attack from without and within it is astonishing that Israel has managed to survive and continue to grow.
It came as a shock to me, then, to hear that Palestinians still call the day of Independence the ‘Nakba’, the Catastrophe. There were no violent protests this year, as there has been in many previous years, but . ¾ of a million Palestinians were evicted from their homes during the conflicts in 1948 and 1967. Many of these families still hold the title deeds to their homes, businesses and farms, which are now in Jewish ownership. Many became refugees in other lands.
In 1948 the founding vision for Israel included the hope that “it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” (Declaration of Independence, 15 May 1948). The Declaration appealed to “the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
This bright hope seems far from reality 69 years later. New high partition walls separate off the Arab inhabitants from Israel and from each other and the outside wall. Arabs who are Israeli citizens feel that they are second-class citizens. It’s complicated.
What is obvious is that the line is tightly drawn between those who see Israel as miracle and those who see it as catastrophe. The chasm between each point of view is steep and edged with razor wire. Trying to walk any kind of middle ground risks standing on a land mine.
If I could wish, I would wish that the Palestinians could grieve for what they have lost and appreciate what they could have. It seems that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused gains for their people in favour of violence. It seems that some in Palestinian leadership have benefitted enormously personally from international aid and there is little to show for their people. A foundational commitment to rhetoric of ‘Catastrophe’, oppression and victimization keeps the trauma of 1948 and 1967 alive and fresh for the Palestinian people, blocking any possibility of partnership or reconciliation.
On the other hand, I wish that Israel would come to terms with the learnings of history, that fences and barbed wire do not build security in a land. Supplying some groups of people with water all day and other groups of people with water for 3 hours a day will build resentment. I struggle to see the long term vision behind the settlements that are pushing into Palestinian areas, setting up local communities for long-term conflict, literally setting in concrete inequalities.
The right-wing Christian community that is supporting Israeli expansion seems to wish that the Palestinians would just give up and move out. This is not my wish. You cannot hope that people will go away.
I am optimistic by nature, but I know enough about history to know that the Holy Land is a crux of human history. For at least 4 millennia empires and world-views have collided in this land, causing untold bloodshed and destruction, but also forging the most important insights and incredible beauty. The chapter of Israel’s history that I will witness in my life-time will be in the grand scheme of things only one moment in a vast story. I can only hope and pray that there will be more miracle than catastrophe.
The week Ben and I were in Israel marked the 79th anniversary of the establishment of Israel. In May 1948 Jewish leaders signed the Declaration of Independence, ending British occupation and triggering the Arab-Israeli war. Blue and white flags and pennants were flying across the city, and people were out enjoying the parks on their Independence Day holiday.
I came to Israel mindful that many people wiser than I are convinced that the regathering of the Jewish people into the modern State of Israel is God's greatest miracle in modern times. I came to Israel wanting to celebrate Israel. I am astonished by all that Israel has achieved, with people from every country and culture forging a new modern nation based on high ideals and fully participating in the world-wide stage. I am impressed at how Israel was able to revitalise an ancient language into a modern one, and breathe new life into an ancient faith. Given the intense and prolonged level of attack from without and within it is astonishing that Israel has managed to survive and continue to grow.
It came as a shock to me, then, to hear that Palestinians still call the day of Independence the ‘Nakba’, the Catastrophe. There were no violent protests this year, as there has been in many previous years, but . ¾ of a million Palestinians were evicted from their homes during the conflicts in 1948 and 1967. Many of these families still hold the title deeds to their homes, businesses and farms, which are now in Jewish ownership. Many became refugees in other lands.
In 1948 the founding vision for Israel included the hope that “it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture” (Declaration of Independence, 15 May 1948). The Declaration appealed to “the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions.”
This bright hope seems far from reality 69 years later. New high partition walls separate off the Arab inhabitants from Israel and from each other and the outside wall. Arabs who are Israeli citizens feel that they are second-class citizens. It’s complicated.
What is obvious is that the line is tightly drawn between those who see Israel as miracle and those who see it as catastrophe. The chasm between each point of view is steep and edged with razor wire. Trying to walk any kind of middle ground risks standing on a land mine.
If I could wish, I would wish that the Palestinians could grieve for what they have lost and appreciate what they could have. It seems that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly refused gains for their people in favour of violence. It seems that some in Palestinian leadership have benefitted enormously personally from international aid and there is little to show for their people. A foundational commitment to rhetoric of ‘Catastrophe’, oppression and victimization keeps the trauma of 1948 and 1967 alive and fresh for the Palestinian people, blocking any possibility of partnership or reconciliation.
On the other hand, I wish that Israel would come to terms with the learnings of history, that fences and barbed wire do not build security in a land. Supplying some groups of people with water all day and other groups of people with water for 3 hours a day will build resentment. I struggle to see the long term vision behind the settlements that are pushing into Palestinian areas, setting up local communities for long-term conflict, literally setting in concrete inequalities.
The right-wing Christian community that is supporting Israeli expansion seems to wish that the Palestinians would just give up and move out. This is not my wish. You cannot hope that people will go away.
I am optimistic by nature, but I know enough about history to know that the Holy Land is a crux of human history. For at least 4 millennia empires and world-views have collided in this land, causing untold bloodshed and destruction, but also forging the most important insights and incredible beauty. The chapter of Israel’s history that I will witness in my life-time will be in the grand scheme of things only one moment in a vast story. I can only hope and pray that there will be more miracle than catastrophe.
3. Indigenous Rights
As Kiwis we bring a unique perspective to the situation in Israel, but we have to be careful about our assumptions. The Treaty of Waitangi has played a highly significant part of who I have found myself to be as a Christian and a Pakeha New Zealander. The church that formed me discovered a foundational commitment to the Tangata Whenua, the indigenous people, of this land. We see ourselves as being in a post-colonial partnership, with a founding document that binds Maori and all settler peoples together, and pathed the way for a government and nation based not on conquest but on treaty. Maori people, and many Christian people, have discovered a great treasure of cultural richness in other indigenous peoples around the world, and Maori are highly respected leaders globally in cultural renaissance for indigenous people.
Our ‘bicultural’ sensibilities, then, ask, ‘Who are the indigenous people in Israel?’. The obvious conclusion is that the Palestinians fit into this category, and it’s easy to see Jewish Israel as the invaders taking their land. Add to this our Kiwi instincts to cheer for the little guy, to support the underdog. Being a little country at the bottom of the world can do that to you. So, many New Zealanders have felt affinity with the Palestinians, and felt a good deal of ambivalence about modern Israel.
But who really are the indigenous people of the land of Israel? I do not believe that we can put the Palestinians in that category. Prior to the formation of modern Israel there was no such country as ‘Palestine’ and no such people as ‘Palestinians’. For most of its history the land of Israel has been a distant province in someone else’s empire. Its history is one succession after another of peoples being displaced by other peoples. And it is a long history. The archaeological sites we visited date back 10,000 years. If anyone can claim to be indigenous it would have been those Canaanites, but their cities were destroyed 3,400 years ago. It was home to the Jewish people for 1,300 years before they were forcibly evicted. The 2,000 years since then has seen various people-groups living there, many of them Christian, but increasingly Muslim over the past 800 years since the Crusaders got kicked out.
How do we form any kind of opinion about who has the ‘right’ to the land? Do those who owned property prior to 1949 have more land rights than those descended from those who owned property prior to 70? In Israel the years and centuries merge and mesh, and a past vastly longer than ours impinges powerfully on the present.
As you form an opinion you have to grapple with the rights and wrongs of claiming land by the power of tanks and guns. But even more critical to come to terms with is the role of faith. Jews believe that God promised them this land. Through nearly 2,000 years living in other lands they kept alive the hope beyond hope that they still had a land and a home. Many other cultures and armed forces (including ‘Christian’ ones) have done their very best to completely crush Judaism and kill the Jewish people. Their very resilience and the incredible resilience of their hope is evidence enough to me that they as a people hold a special status before God. It offends our modern sensibilities to claim that God loves anyone more than anyone else, but I am not alone in claiming that the Jewish people are ‘indigenous’ to the Lord of heaven and earth. Their relationship with God is governed not by their own faithfulness or lack of it, but by the commitment of God to them.
Perhaps the nub of it for me as a Christian is that I choose to allow God to over-rule my own cultural assumptions and even theological convictions. I choose to give the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments a degree of authority over my life and human history that exceeds my own ability to understand it. I seek to see the hand of God at work in the world, even if that crashes into my personal values and agendas. Beyond all our interpretations and textual criticisms lies the living one who is utterly free to be the great I Am. We can stand and say ‘Here I am, this is me and what I think about things’, but we must take off our shoes and let God be God.
As Kiwis we bring a unique perspective to the situation in Israel, but we have to be careful about our assumptions. The Treaty of Waitangi has played a highly significant part of who I have found myself to be as a Christian and a Pakeha New Zealander. The church that formed me discovered a foundational commitment to the Tangata Whenua, the indigenous people, of this land. We see ourselves as being in a post-colonial partnership, with a founding document that binds Maori and all settler peoples together, and pathed the way for a government and nation based not on conquest but on treaty. Maori people, and many Christian people, have discovered a great treasure of cultural richness in other indigenous peoples around the world, and Maori are highly respected leaders globally in cultural renaissance for indigenous people.
Our ‘bicultural’ sensibilities, then, ask, ‘Who are the indigenous people in Israel?’. The obvious conclusion is that the Palestinians fit into this category, and it’s easy to see Jewish Israel as the invaders taking their land. Add to this our Kiwi instincts to cheer for the little guy, to support the underdog. Being a little country at the bottom of the world can do that to you. So, many New Zealanders have felt affinity with the Palestinians, and felt a good deal of ambivalence about modern Israel.
But who really are the indigenous people of the land of Israel? I do not believe that we can put the Palestinians in that category. Prior to the formation of modern Israel there was no such country as ‘Palestine’ and no such people as ‘Palestinians’. For most of its history the land of Israel has been a distant province in someone else’s empire. Its history is one succession after another of peoples being displaced by other peoples. And it is a long history. The archaeological sites we visited date back 10,000 years. If anyone can claim to be indigenous it would have been those Canaanites, but their cities were destroyed 3,400 years ago. It was home to the Jewish people for 1,300 years before they were forcibly evicted. The 2,000 years since then has seen various people-groups living there, many of them Christian, but increasingly Muslim over the past 800 years since the Crusaders got kicked out.
How do we form any kind of opinion about who has the ‘right’ to the land? Do those who owned property prior to 1949 have more land rights than those descended from those who owned property prior to 70? In Israel the years and centuries merge and mesh, and a past vastly longer than ours impinges powerfully on the present.
As you form an opinion you have to grapple with the rights and wrongs of claiming land by the power of tanks and guns. But even more critical to come to terms with is the role of faith. Jews believe that God promised them this land. Through nearly 2,000 years living in other lands they kept alive the hope beyond hope that they still had a land and a home. Many other cultures and armed forces (including ‘Christian’ ones) have done their very best to completely crush Judaism and kill the Jewish people. Their very resilience and the incredible resilience of their hope is evidence enough to me that they as a people hold a special status before God. It offends our modern sensibilities to claim that God loves anyone more than anyone else, but I am not alone in claiming that the Jewish people are ‘indigenous’ to the Lord of heaven and earth. Their relationship with God is governed not by their own faithfulness or lack of it, but by the commitment of God to them.
Perhaps the nub of it for me as a Christian is that I choose to allow God to over-rule my own cultural assumptions and even theological convictions. I choose to give the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments a degree of authority over my life and human history that exceeds my own ability to understand it. I seek to see the hand of God at work in the world, even if that crashes into my personal values and agendas. Beyond all our interpretations and textual criticisms lies the living one who is utterly free to be the great I Am. We can stand and say ‘Here I am, this is me and what I think about things’, but we must take off our shoes and let God be God.
4. Promise Keeping: the Old Testament Covenants and modern politics
The entire relationship between Judaism and Christianity and the validity of modern Israel hinges on one word: covenant. How you understand the covenants made in the Bible between God and his people profoundly shapes your theology and your attitude to events both historical and contemporary.
I was brought up with what for a long time was the accepted norm in Christian thinking: that there are two covenants in the Bible, one old and the other new. When Jesus declared a New Covenant through his blood this replaced the covenant between God and the Jews. Christianity through much of our history has seen Jews as the people God rejected, because of their rejection of the messiah.
Over the last few years I have come to see this theology as deeply flawed and unbiblical.
For a start, the Old Testament contains more than one covenant. My reading is that God makes four covenants: one with Noah, one with Abraham, one with Moses, and one with David. All four are initiated by God, and are promises in partnership. A covenant is a sacred deal, with commitments from both sides. It is not time-limited, these biblical covenants are “everlasting”.
1. Noah. Genesis 9. God’s covenant with humankind and every living thing, signed with a rainbow. God promises to never again wipe out all life with a flood (a promise which will be tested by global warming!). The people are warned not to kill each other and to respect the blood of the animals also.
2. Abram. Genesis 15. God promises Abram that his descendants will occupy the entire middle east, all the way from the Nile to the Euphrates (and be “many nations”). Abram is given a new name (Abraham) and commits to circumcision.
3. Moses. Exodus 34, Moses is up the mountain, having been given the 10 Commandments for the 2nd time after the first batch got smashed. God promises to give the people of Israel the land of the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites on condition that the Israelites don’t make any peace treaties or blend in with these various people groups. The territory this describes is debatable, but probably covers the hill-country of Judea north to Mt Hebron and the Jordan river valley (i.e. modern Israel minus the flat land along the Mediterranean coast). God promises “to do wonders”, that his power and presence will go with them into the land (i.e. God is not just the God of the desert). The 10 Commandments is part of this covenant, laying the basis for all that constitutes “the law” of the Torah.
4. David. When God says to Samuel “Rise and anoint David; he is the one” (1 Samuel 16:12) a new covenant begins. Through Nathan God makes the promise to David: “I will establish the throne of your offspring’s kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son … Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.” (2 Samuel 7:12-16, also affirmed in Psalm 89).
So what do we make of these covenants? Are they everlasting? Are they still valid, living agreements? If so, with whom?
It comes down to how we understand the very character and nature of God. The Jewish and Christian faiths both affirm that God is a promise-keeping God. Our God is not fickle or arbitrary like the pagan gods, needing to be paid off or constantly bargained with. Our God is not aloof and unaffected by human history like other religions convey, or controlling humans like puppets. Human existence is not in the hands of blind fate or tossed around by the whim of uncaring deities. The God who created us and sustains all life is deeply involved with us, through covent partnership. Over and over again our scriptures declare above all that this God of ours is faithful. Steadfast love is his defining characteristic. People may give up on God but God will never give up on us. We who have entered into covenant partnership with him, either by faith in Christ or by Jewish ancestry, live inside the covenants made by God. So, I would argue, these four Old Testament covenants are living and relevant:
1, with Noah, is profoundly relevant to all humanity's relationship with the natural world, and is more important than ever as our planet is under threat.
2, with Abraham, is problematic because the descendants of Abraham includes the Jewish, Palestinian and Arab communities who are struggling to work out how to cohabit in the territory promised to them.
3, with Moses, is a covenant made specifically with the people of Israel. Although Paul claims that in Christ we become adopted in to God’s promises, he lays no claim to the land of Israel for Christians. It seems to me that the land of Israel is promised to the people of Israel, through Moses and the law. God’s promise to those who are in Christ is that we will go into all the world to preach the gospel.
4, with David, I am convinced, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who claimed the throne in the line of David when he rose from the dead, and whose kingdom will have no end.
All these covenants have been broken of course. People have stuffed up, things have been destroyed, and through all the mess we make of things God continually reaffirms the covenant, gives us 2nd chances, calls us back to faithfulness. The prophets, and Jesus himself, restate over and over again that God wants to be in loving covenanted relationship with us.
Of particular importance to modern Israel are the prophecies about the people of Israel being returned to the land of Zion: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel”, proclaims Amos (9:14-15), “they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them … I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them."
You have to think these things through. When people talk about the Promised Land, talk about which promises they are referring to. Yes, God did promise the land of Israel to Abraham, but actually it was the entire middle-east region that God promised him for his descendants, and Abraham’s descendants includes many nations and races of people, as God promised in the first place.
Yes, God did promise the land of Palestine/Canaan/Israel to the Israelites under Moses, but this did not necessarily include the coastal land that modern Israel has laid claim to (including Gaza, Tel Aviv, right up to Haifa).
Yes, Jesus did make a New Covenant with us, but this does not invalidate the covenants that came before him. It’s not an either-or. God is a promise-keeping God!
The entire relationship between Judaism and Christianity and the validity of modern Israel hinges on one word: covenant. How you understand the covenants made in the Bible between God and his people profoundly shapes your theology and your attitude to events both historical and contemporary.
I was brought up with what for a long time was the accepted norm in Christian thinking: that there are two covenants in the Bible, one old and the other new. When Jesus declared a New Covenant through his blood this replaced the covenant between God and the Jews. Christianity through much of our history has seen Jews as the people God rejected, because of their rejection of the messiah.
Over the last few years I have come to see this theology as deeply flawed and unbiblical.
For a start, the Old Testament contains more than one covenant. My reading is that God makes four covenants: one with Noah, one with Abraham, one with Moses, and one with David. All four are initiated by God, and are promises in partnership. A covenant is a sacred deal, with commitments from both sides. It is not time-limited, these biblical covenants are “everlasting”.
1. Noah. Genesis 9. God’s covenant with humankind and every living thing, signed with a rainbow. God promises to never again wipe out all life with a flood (a promise which will be tested by global warming!). The people are warned not to kill each other and to respect the blood of the animals also.
2. Abram. Genesis 15. God promises Abram that his descendants will occupy the entire middle east, all the way from the Nile to the Euphrates (and be “many nations”). Abram is given a new name (Abraham) and commits to circumcision.
3. Moses. Exodus 34, Moses is up the mountain, having been given the 10 Commandments for the 2nd time after the first batch got smashed. God promises to give the people of Israel the land of the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites on condition that the Israelites don’t make any peace treaties or blend in with these various people groups. The territory this describes is debatable, but probably covers the hill-country of Judea north to Mt Hebron and the Jordan river valley (i.e. modern Israel minus the flat land along the Mediterranean coast). God promises “to do wonders”, that his power and presence will go with them into the land (i.e. God is not just the God of the desert). The 10 Commandments is part of this covenant, laying the basis for all that constitutes “the law” of the Torah.
4. David. When God says to Samuel “Rise and anoint David; he is the one” (1 Samuel 16:12) a new covenant begins. Through Nathan God makes the promise to David: “I will establish the throne of your offspring’s kingdom forever. I will be his father and he will be my son … Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.” (2 Samuel 7:12-16, also affirmed in Psalm 89).
So what do we make of these covenants? Are they everlasting? Are they still valid, living agreements? If so, with whom?
It comes down to how we understand the very character and nature of God. The Jewish and Christian faiths both affirm that God is a promise-keeping God. Our God is not fickle or arbitrary like the pagan gods, needing to be paid off or constantly bargained with. Our God is not aloof and unaffected by human history like other religions convey, or controlling humans like puppets. Human existence is not in the hands of blind fate or tossed around by the whim of uncaring deities. The God who created us and sustains all life is deeply involved with us, through covent partnership. Over and over again our scriptures declare above all that this God of ours is faithful. Steadfast love is his defining characteristic. People may give up on God but God will never give up on us. We who have entered into covenant partnership with him, either by faith in Christ or by Jewish ancestry, live inside the covenants made by God. So, I would argue, these four Old Testament covenants are living and relevant:
1, with Noah, is profoundly relevant to all humanity's relationship with the natural world, and is more important than ever as our planet is under threat.
2, with Abraham, is problematic because the descendants of Abraham includes the Jewish, Palestinian and Arab communities who are struggling to work out how to cohabit in the territory promised to them.
3, with Moses, is a covenant made specifically with the people of Israel. Although Paul claims that in Christ we become adopted in to God’s promises, he lays no claim to the land of Israel for Christians. It seems to me that the land of Israel is promised to the people of Israel, through Moses and the law. God’s promise to those who are in Christ is that we will go into all the world to preach the gospel.
4, with David, I am convinced, is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, who claimed the throne in the line of David when he rose from the dead, and whose kingdom will have no end.
All these covenants have been broken of course. People have stuffed up, things have been destroyed, and through all the mess we make of things God continually reaffirms the covenant, gives us 2nd chances, calls us back to faithfulness. The prophets, and Jesus himself, restate over and over again that God wants to be in loving covenanted relationship with us.
Of particular importance to modern Israel are the prophecies about the people of Israel being returned to the land of Zion: “I will bring back my exiled people Israel”, proclaims Amos (9:14-15), “they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them … I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them."
You have to think these things through. When people talk about the Promised Land, talk about which promises they are referring to. Yes, God did promise the land of Israel to Abraham, but actually it was the entire middle-east region that God promised him for his descendants, and Abraham’s descendants includes many nations and races of people, as God promised in the first place.
Yes, God did promise the land of Palestine/Canaan/Israel to the Israelites under Moses, but this did not necessarily include the coastal land that modern Israel has laid claim to (including Gaza, Tel Aviv, right up to Haifa).
Yes, Jesus did make a New Covenant with us, but this does not invalidate the covenants that came before him. It’s not an either-or. God is a promise-keeping God!
5. Conquest
The single hardest question in this whole discussion revolves around the rights and wrongs of conquest. This gets us into a whole bunch of gnarly questions such as:
Is armed conquest justifiable?
By whose standards? Under what conditions?
Does the God you believe in ever condone or demand violence?
Goes God act in human history through war? destruction? oppression? catastrophe?
Jesus of Nazareth advocated an ethic of non-violence; did this supplement or supplant the Old Testament ethic of conquest? … i.e. as followers of Jesus should we fully commit to non-violence or can we ‘pick and choose’ between war and peace as it suits us?
What right do we have to impose our values on another nation or religion?
How willing am I to justify the loss of land or freedom for one group of people if that contributes to the ‘greater good’ of a larger group of people? (Easy for me to say so long as it’s not my land or freedom that’s being sacrificed!)
… and how would I answer all these questions differently if I lived in a nation under constant threat of attack, with neighbours who have vowed to destroy us??
My discussion about the rights and wrongs of modern Israel begins with the conviction that God promised the people of Israel a home forever in the land of Israel, in everlasting covenant. This promise is a deep-running river through all the Hebrew scriptures. Its focus is Exodus 34, God’s covenant with Moses. God makes 2 promises to Moses in Exodus 34. The first is “I will work wonders” (v10); i.e. ‘I will be with you and be your God in power, not just here in the desert but in the land also’. The second is “I will drive out nations before you” (v11 & 24). God demands that the Israelites do their bit in driving out the various inhabitants of Canaan, destroying their religious sites and sustaining enmity with them. They must not make peace treaties, they must not intermarry, they must not join sides with one group against another, they must not blend in.
This offends our modern sensibilities. We wish it said “Honour the indigenous people and respect their bond with the land. These people have some awesome technologies you could benefit from, so get along with them, share your culture, respect their religion. Play nice.” Exodus 34 does not say that. It says ‘attack, kill, destroy’. It says ‘any land you win by the sword is yours by right of the sword’.
The terms of God’s covenant with Moses breaches international law. Modern Israel has claimed land through military conquest, and continues to claim land in Palestinian areas through the housing settlement programme. How you feel about this depends on how you feel about the use of force, and how you relate this to your faith. Palestinian Christians feel strongly that Jewish Israel cannot lay exclusive claim to all of the land of Israel. They reject the right of military conquest and seek support from the international community in upholding the rights of all those who live in Israel to own land and exercise freedom. Within the Jewish community there are different views on the role of armed force. Certainly within the Hebrew scriptures there are voices calling for peace, for justice for all. My hope and prayer is that within Israeli leadership there is heard valid, faith-full alternatives to the command to drive out all others from the land through armed conquest.
The single hardest question in this whole discussion revolves around the rights and wrongs of conquest. This gets us into a whole bunch of gnarly questions such as:
Is armed conquest justifiable?
By whose standards? Under what conditions?
Does the God you believe in ever condone or demand violence?
Goes God act in human history through war? destruction? oppression? catastrophe?
Jesus of Nazareth advocated an ethic of non-violence; did this supplement or supplant the Old Testament ethic of conquest? … i.e. as followers of Jesus should we fully commit to non-violence or can we ‘pick and choose’ between war and peace as it suits us?
What right do we have to impose our values on another nation or religion?
How willing am I to justify the loss of land or freedom for one group of people if that contributes to the ‘greater good’ of a larger group of people? (Easy for me to say so long as it’s not my land or freedom that’s being sacrificed!)
… and how would I answer all these questions differently if I lived in a nation under constant threat of attack, with neighbours who have vowed to destroy us??
My discussion about the rights and wrongs of modern Israel begins with the conviction that God promised the people of Israel a home forever in the land of Israel, in everlasting covenant. This promise is a deep-running river through all the Hebrew scriptures. Its focus is Exodus 34, God’s covenant with Moses. God makes 2 promises to Moses in Exodus 34. The first is “I will work wonders” (v10); i.e. ‘I will be with you and be your God in power, not just here in the desert but in the land also’. The second is “I will drive out nations before you” (v11 & 24). God demands that the Israelites do their bit in driving out the various inhabitants of Canaan, destroying their religious sites and sustaining enmity with them. They must not make peace treaties, they must not intermarry, they must not join sides with one group against another, they must not blend in.
This offends our modern sensibilities. We wish it said “Honour the indigenous people and respect their bond with the land. These people have some awesome technologies you could benefit from, so get along with them, share your culture, respect their religion. Play nice.” Exodus 34 does not say that. It says ‘attack, kill, destroy’. It says ‘any land you win by the sword is yours by right of the sword’.
The terms of God’s covenant with Moses breaches international law. Modern Israel has claimed land through military conquest, and continues to claim land in Palestinian areas through the housing settlement programme. How you feel about this depends on how you feel about the use of force, and how you relate this to your faith. Palestinian Christians feel strongly that Jewish Israel cannot lay exclusive claim to all of the land of Israel. They reject the right of military conquest and seek support from the international community in upholding the rights of all those who live in Israel to own land and exercise freedom. Within the Jewish community there are different views on the role of armed force. Certainly within the Hebrew scriptures there are voices calling for peace, for justice for all. My hope and prayer is that within Israeli leadership there is heard valid, faith-full alternatives to the command to drive out all others from the land through armed conquest.
6. Armed force: a brief personal reflection
Here are the voices I am hearing:
The Anglican priest whose family was evicted from their home at gun point in the 1967 war and who still have the title deed to that house (now lived in by a Jewish family)
The Arab Palestinian teachers who teach the children in primary school that peace will only come when Israel has been swept into the sea, and whose geography text books show a Palestine with no presence of the State of Israel
How can I possibly criticise Israel for making Palestinians walk single file through a checkpoint at gunpoint in order to visit the next town when so many bombs have been fired at Israel from Palestinian territories?
Is my reaction to Israeli military control the response of privilege, my white middle-class sensibilities; I already have and take for granted the security for which Israel must fight every day?
My father and his friends believed passionately that violence and military force was never an answer to anything. Anything gained by the use of force, he believed, was ultimately futile, for violence only breeds violence. Although he knew that Jews were being slaughtered by Naxi forces, he chose, at great personal sacrifice, to refuse to fight in the war.
And me? My reading of the Bible does not lead me to the conclusion that the use of force is never an option for people of faith. If New Zealand was under attack from a hostile army I would encourage my sons to be well trained and armed and to actively participate in our nation’s defence, even if it meant putting themselves in harm’s way. There are values higher than peace and there are worse things than death.
Sorry, Dad.
Here are the voices I am hearing:
The Anglican priest whose family was evicted from their home at gun point in the 1967 war and who still have the title deed to that house (now lived in by a Jewish family)
The Arab Palestinian teachers who teach the children in primary school that peace will only come when Israel has been swept into the sea, and whose geography text books show a Palestine with no presence of the State of Israel
How can I possibly criticise Israel for making Palestinians walk single file through a checkpoint at gunpoint in order to visit the next town when so many bombs have been fired at Israel from Palestinian territories?
Is my reaction to Israeli military control the response of privilege, my white middle-class sensibilities; I already have and take for granted the security for which Israel must fight every day?
My father and his friends believed passionately that violence and military force was never an answer to anything. Anything gained by the use of force, he believed, was ultimately futile, for violence only breeds violence. Although he knew that Jews were being slaughtered by Naxi forces, he chose, at great personal sacrifice, to refuse to fight in the war.
And me? My reading of the Bible does not lead me to the conclusion that the use of force is never an option for people of faith. If New Zealand was under attack from a hostile army I would encourage my sons to be well trained and armed and to actively participate in our nation’s defence, even if it meant putting themselves in harm’s way. There are values higher than peace and there are worse things than death.
Sorry, Dad.
7. Dollars, Pounds and Peace
Surely no other piece of real estate in the world has been on the receiving end of so much foreign investment. Ever since prehistory Israel was the coveted trade route, a pathway in the grand battles between empires; Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Greece, Rome, Iran, Britain. Over the centuries every nation has wanted a piece of the action. Churches have been built and funded by every major church on the planet: Russian, Roman, Armenian, Baptist, even the Scots! And since the foundation of modern Israel, money has flooded in from around the world, especially America. The US contributes a very large (undisclosed) amount to Israel. American money pays for the military, for the walls and checkpoints. American money pays for the flash new houses to be built in Palestinian areas, homes for Jews coming from every country on earth. American support keeps power in the hands of the right-wing hard-line in Israeli politics. I heard it said that Israel is the 51st State.
I do celebrate the nation of Israel. I do agree with Derek Prince that the formation of modern Israel is one of the greatest miracles of our time. I do not agree with those following Derek Prince that as Christians we should be funding Israel’s expansion. Before I left on my trip I went to a local church meeting in support of Israel. The teaching that night was that the return of Jews to the land of Israel is prophesied in scripture (which I agreed with), and is necessary before the return of Christ. The preacher went so far as to say that as we promote the settlement of Jews in Israel we hasten the return of Christ. At which point I left the meeting.
Derek Prince’s last words were a prayer for the peace of Jerusalem. I too have come home determined to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The problem with foreign investment is that it is funding new Jewish settlements and military barricades. These things actively work against the peace of Jerusalem. Christians in the West do have a significant role to play. My plea is that our prayers and our donations should work for peace not for conquest. The more Jewish settlers move into homes in Palestinian areas, the more Palestinian people are squeezed and restricted within Israel, the less chance there is for peace.
Israel's best chance for peace is to be honoured as a nation, for truly democratic systems to be nurtured, giving voice to all who live in the land. The rest of the world might want a piece of Israel, but this does not necessarily work for peace in Israel.
Surely no other piece of real estate in the world has been on the receiving end of so much foreign investment. Ever since prehistory Israel was the coveted trade route, a pathway in the grand battles between empires; Egypt, Babylon, Syria, Greece, Rome, Iran, Britain. Over the centuries every nation has wanted a piece of the action. Churches have been built and funded by every major church on the planet: Russian, Roman, Armenian, Baptist, even the Scots! And since the foundation of modern Israel, money has flooded in from around the world, especially America. The US contributes a very large (undisclosed) amount to Israel. American money pays for the military, for the walls and checkpoints. American money pays for the flash new houses to be built in Palestinian areas, homes for Jews coming from every country on earth. American support keeps power in the hands of the right-wing hard-line in Israeli politics. I heard it said that Israel is the 51st State.
I do celebrate the nation of Israel. I do agree with Derek Prince that the formation of modern Israel is one of the greatest miracles of our time. I do not agree with those following Derek Prince that as Christians we should be funding Israel’s expansion. Before I left on my trip I went to a local church meeting in support of Israel. The teaching that night was that the return of Jews to the land of Israel is prophesied in scripture (which I agreed with), and is necessary before the return of Christ. The preacher went so far as to say that as we promote the settlement of Jews in Israel we hasten the return of Christ. At which point I left the meeting.
Derek Prince’s last words were a prayer for the peace of Jerusalem. I too have come home determined to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. The problem with foreign investment is that it is funding new Jewish settlements and military barricades. These things actively work against the peace of Jerusalem. Christians in the West do have a significant role to play. My plea is that our prayers and our donations should work for peace not for conquest. The more Jewish settlers move into homes in Palestinian areas, the more Palestinian people are squeezed and restricted within Israel, the less chance there is for peace.
Israel's best chance for peace is to be honoured as a nation, for truly democratic systems to be nurtured, giving voice to all who live in the land. The rest of the world might want a piece of Israel, but this does not necessarily work for peace in Israel.
8. A people, a land, a God: authorship of Genesis and Exodus
Can there be two books more passionately fought over, and more significant to global politics, in human history than Genesis and Exodus?! While our Introductions to Bible Lands course was focused primarily on Jesus and the places of his life, we also visited three archaeological sites significant for understanding the origins of the nation of Israel and its sense of being a people with a land and a God. As I begin to process the implications of all this for my own faith and theology, I feel the need to begin at the beginning, with the thorny question of who wrote the books of Genesis and Exodus.
Basically, no one knows the answer; we choose our own answer depending on our theological and political agenda. Take your pick on a continuum; on one end you have the straightforward answer that because the Bible says that Moses wrote it, then Moses wrote it (with astonishing magical powers of prediction for all that happened after his death!). On the other extreme you have the Biblical scholars that refuse to believe that anything much got written down until after the Babylonian exile, and all of it was a fictional narrative designed to grant legitimacy to the emerging but fragile sense of identity of the Jewish people in the 6th century BC. In between these positions there is a lot of ground. And how you answer this question for yourself becomes deeply influential in how you see modern political and theological claims around the nation of Israel, for these two books more than any other shape the debates, defining the rights of the people of Israel (both Jewish and Palestinian) to the land of Israel.
I am going to choose a place to stand on the question of who wrote Genesis and Exodus.
First question: what kind of books are they? What do they contain?
Answer: a) narrative, b) moral code, c) worship
Genesis and Exodus are a collection of stories, narratives about a people, specifically, about 12 tribes of people who together form a shared identity as Israel.
The books also contain sections of moral instruction, the basis for a legal system.
Threaded through all of these are claims about a deity, the god Yahweh, and patterns of engagement with this God.
A key feature of Genesis and Exodus is that it is about 12 tribes in one collective identity. To me this is the biggest clue to its authorship. In 586BC 10 of these tribes were effectively wiped out, so it seems obvious to me that these narratives were written before that date. And prior to that the tribes were mostly independent, or separated into a northern and southern split. The only time when all 12 tribes were integrated into one political entity was when David and Solomon were kings. So my claim is that Genesis and Exodus were written during the reigns of David and Solomon.
Genesis and Exodus are far too much to have been written by one person. Yet they sit together into a continuous flow. They read as one story. Material from worship and law is woven in logically, it is cohesive. To me this reveals team work under competent leadership, different authors working on different sections, brought together by a single editor. This means people being paid to do this job, something that surely could only have happened in the reign of David and Solomon; this requires central government, funds, and stability, space and time to work.
Being in Israel, seeing the places, connecting place and scripture, it becomes obvious that the stories told in scripture, including Genesis and Exodus, are deeply grounded in place. The narratives make sense, the stories are ‘true’. You can see in the ancient Canaanite wall a window where a couple of spies might have been lowered to the ground in the dark and where a red ribbon might have hung as a sign of promise. You can see rocks and mountains and valleys where water sprung up and cloud hung low. The stories in Genesis and Exodus are stories of a long long time ago, handed down through generations. Someone took the time to seek out these stories and write them down. Someone made decisions about which stories to include and in which order. Someone pulled these hundreds of stories together into a coherent combined ‘grand narrative’. And whoever did that had some powerful convictions that guided this task. It was not simply oral history, this was nation building. Stories from 12 tribes belonged together, literally in one family.
I am in awe of the scale of the task undertaken by the authors of Genesis and Exodus. I am astounded that their work is still vitally important to human civilisation 3,000 years later, partly because their style of storytelling is so vivid, integrated and personable. It is readable, it is engaging, the people leap out of the pages at us. The brilliance of Genesis and Exodus is theology, identity, culture and law expressed as a great story.
Can there be two books more passionately fought over, and more significant to global politics, in human history than Genesis and Exodus?! While our Introductions to Bible Lands course was focused primarily on Jesus and the places of his life, we also visited three archaeological sites significant for understanding the origins of the nation of Israel and its sense of being a people with a land and a God. As I begin to process the implications of all this for my own faith and theology, I feel the need to begin at the beginning, with the thorny question of who wrote the books of Genesis and Exodus.
Basically, no one knows the answer; we choose our own answer depending on our theological and political agenda. Take your pick on a continuum; on one end you have the straightforward answer that because the Bible says that Moses wrote it, then Moses wrote it (with astonishing magical powers of prediction for all that happened after his death!). On the other extreme you have the Biblical scholars that refuse to believe that anything much got written down until after the Babylonian exile, and all of it was a fictional narrative designed to grant legitimacy to the emerging but fragile sense of identity of the Jewish people in the 6th century BC. In between these positions there is a lot of ground. And how you answer this question for yourself becomes deeply influential in how you see modern political and theological claims around the nation of Israel, for these two books more than any other shape the debates, defining the rights of the people of Israel (both Jewish and Palestinian) to the land of Israel.
I am going to choose a place to stand on the question of who wrote Genesis and Exodus.
First question: what kind of books are they? What do they contain?
Answer: a) narrative, b) moral code, c) worship
Genesis and Exodus are a collection of stories, narratives about a people, specifically, about 12 tribes of people who together form a shared identity as Israel.
The books also contain sections of moral instruction, the basis for a legal system.
Threaded through all of these are claims about a deity, the god Yahweh, and patterns of engagement with this God.
A key feature of Genesis and Exodus is that it is about 12 tribes in one collective identity. To me this is the biggest clue to its authorship. In 586BC 10 of these tribes were effectively wiped out, so it seems obvious to me that these narratives were written before that date. And prior to that the tribes were mostly independent, or separated into a northern and southern split. The only time when all 12 tribes were integrated into one political entity was when David and Solomon were kings. So my claim is that Genesis and Exodus were written during the reigns of David and Solomon.
Genesis and Exodus are far too much to have been written by one person. Yet they sit together into a continuous flow. They read as one story. Material from worship and law is woven in logically, it is cohesive. To me this reveals team work under competent leadership, different authors working on different sections, brought together by a single editor. This means people being paid to do this job, something that surely could only have happened in the reign of David and Solomon; this requires central government, funds, and stability, space and time to work.
Being in Israel, seeing the places, connecting place and scripture, it becomes obvious that the stories told in scripture, including Genesis and Exodus, are deeply grounded in place. The narratives make sense, the stories are ‘true’. You can see in the ancient Canaanite wall a window where a couple of spies might have been lowered to the ground in the dark and where a red ribbon might have hung as a sign of promise. You can see rocks and mountains and valleys where water sprung up and cloud hung low. The stories in Genesis and Exodus are stories of a long long time ago, handed down through generations. Someone took the time to seek out these stories and write them down. Someone made decisions about which stories to include and in which order. Someone pulled these hundreds of stories together into a coherent combined ‘grand narrative’. And whoever did that had some powerful convictions that guided this task. It was not simply oral history, this was nation building. Stories from 12 tribes belonged together, literally in one family.
I am in awe of the scale of the task undertaken by the authors of Genesis and Exodus. I am astounded that their work is still vitally important to human civilisation 3,000 years later, partly because their style of storytelling is so vivid, integrated and personable. It is readable, it is engaging, the people leap out of the pages at us. The brilliance of Genesis and Exodus is theology, identity, culture and law expressed as a great story.
9. The problem with Exodus
In my last piece I argued that the books of Genesis and Exodus were written by a team of scholars during the time of David and Solomon who collated oral history into a cohesive narrative for a particular nationalistic political agenda. So far so good, but the fact is that we run into problems when we attempt to make sense of Exodus and Joshua, especially the whole section about the conquest of Canaan. It simply does not fit the archeological evidence. Which is a problem when the narratives about the conquest of Canaan are used as the theological underpinning of a modern state.
Exodus begins in Egypt, with the Hebrew people in slavery. Moses and his siblings lead their people out in a dramatic escape, then the people spend 40 years wandering in the desert before Joshua leads a new generation into a bold military takeover of the land of Canaan. It is surely one of the greatest stories ever told, packed with human and divine drama, packed with metaphors and conversations that have fundamentally shaped the world ever since. Incredible stuff. And no doubt there were historical events that were the raw material for the narrative. But here’s the thing:
Certainly there were slaves in Egypt, including some described by the Egyptians as ‘Hebrews’ (or something similar) and some slaves no doubt escaped from time to time.
Certainly there was a significant shift in culture around 300-200BC, with the fall of the sophisticated Canaanite city-states and evidence of early Jewish communities settling the Jordan valley and up through Israel’s hill country. They were not as advanced technologically or militarily as the Canaanites had been but they held their own. They were not able to settle west of the hills, into the good flat land near the coast, as the Philistines who lived there did a good job of defending their territory.
Certainly there was a developing common faith, with worship sites and religious practices which were different from the other cultures around them.
Certainly by the time of David there was a collective cultural and religious identity and he was able to forge 12 tribes together into a single nation.
So what do I make of all this? I simply refuse to believe that the whole Moses saga is purely fictional. There must be collective memory behind it. But I have to believe that it is exaggerated. The numbers of people involved in the Exodus account are simply impossible. If a band of Hebrew slaves escaped Egypt it would have been dozens of people not hundreds of thousands of people. Or maybe there were several groups who had various pathways to the land of Canaan, including some escaping slaves.
In which case, what is interesting is how these people forged a shared identity around a shared God. They carried with them stories of their ancestors, including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and together, like Jacob, they were given a new name – Israel. My frustration with the book of Exodus is that in making it all so neat and cohesive it obscures what to me must have been a more messy process of disparate tribes coming together and choosing to be one people with one story. The author of Exodus places a huge significance on the time in the wilderness. The centre of Exodus, the ’10 Commandments’ story in Exodus 20, sets the scene for the vast body of legal and religious code, which is all set in that moment of cultural formation, camped there on the hot dry rock under Mt Sinai, which tracks through the rest of the Torah, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, before the book of Joshua picks up the action again with the crossing of the Jordan river.
The challenge for me as a minister is how to preach from these texts in a way which both respects the integrity and power of the narrative without endorsing it as historical fact. What matters historically is the vital importance to the people of Israel of being a people. The whole ‘identity forged in the wilderness’ thing is utterly central. Theologically it is central because it is the claim that God chose them and set them apart. The wilderness is the space in which the people are nothing and have nothing except their relationship with the living God and with each other. All is promise, all is faith.
And I do believe that the promise made by God to that people at that time has stood through the millennia and is being fulfilled in our time in the land of Israel. These questions of historicity and significance are deeply relevant to modern disputes. As Christians, let’s bring our brains to the text, let’s do the work grappling with the archaeology rather than accepting what anyone says uncritically. And let’s grow in our understanding of who Jesus was and what he was doing in reconstituting the 12 tribes of Israel in a whole new way, a whole new community, in himself.
This is a complex topic and I doubt I have done it justice here. I do know that we cannot understand the book of Exodus, or the Gospels, or the contemporary situation in Israel without grappling with these questions.
In my last piece I argued that the books of Genesis and Exodus were written by a team of scholars during the time of David and Solomon who collated oral history into a cohesive narrative for a particular nationalistic political agenda. So far so good, but the fact is that we run into problems when we attempt to make sense of Exodus and Joshua, especially the whole section about the conquest of Canaan. It simply does not fit the archeological evidence. Which is a problem when the narratives about the conquest of Canaan are used as the theological underpinning of a modern state.
Exodus begins in Egypt, with the Hebrew people in slavery. Moses and his siblings lead their people out in a dramatic escape, then the people spend 40 years wandering in the desert before Joshua leads a new generation into a bold military takeover of the land of Canaan. It is surely one of the greatest stories ever told, packed with human and divine drama, packed with metaphors and conversations that have fundamentally shaped the world ever since. Incredible stuff. And no doubt there were historical events that were the raw material for the narrative. But here’s the thing:
- there is no archaeological evidence of a large group of people spending a long period of time in that particular bit of wilderness. Nothing at all.
- there’s nothing in the Egyptian record base that matches what is described in Exodus. Nothing at all, and the Egyptians were meticulous record keepers.
- the Canaanite cities, most notably Jericho, which Exodus claims were destroyed by Joshua, were actually destroyed a couple of hundred years before the time of the Hebrew settlement of Canaan
Certainly there were slaves in Egypt, including some described by the Egyptians as ‘Hebrews’ (or something similar) and some slaves no doubt escaped from time to time.
Certainly there was a significant shift in culture around 300-200BC, with the fall of the sophisticated Canaanite city-states and evidence of early Jewish communities settling the Jordan valley and up through Israel’s hill country. They were not as advanced technologically or militarily as the Canaanites had been but they held their own. They were not able to settle west of the hills, into the good flat land near the coast, as the Philistines who lived there did a good job of defending their territory.
Certainly there was a developing common faith, with worship sites and religious practices which were different from the other cultures around them.
Certainly by the time of David there was a collective cultural and religious identity and he was able to forge 12 tribes together into a single nation.
So what do I make of all this? I simply refuse to believe that the whole Moses saga is purely fictional. There must be collective memory behind it. But I have to believe that it is exaggerated. The numbers of people involved in the Exodus account are simply impossible. If a band of Hebrew slaves escaped Egypt it would have been dozens of people not hundreds of thousands of people. Or maybe there were several groups who had various pathways to the land of Canaan, including some escaping slaves.
In which case, what is interesting is how these people forged a shared identity around a shared God. They carried with them stories of their ancestors, including Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and together, like Jacob, they were given a new name – Israel. My frustration with the book of Exodus is that in making it all so neat and cohesive it obscures what to me must have been a more messy process of disparate tribes coming together and choosing to be one people with one story. The author of Exodus places a huge significance on the time in the wilderness. The centre of Exodus, the ’10 Commandments’ story in Exodus 20, sets the scene for the vast body of legal and religious code, which is all set in that moment of cultural formation, camped there on the hot dry rock under Mt Sinai, which tracks through the rest of the Torah, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, before the book of Joshua picks up the action again with the crossing of the Jordan river.
The challenge for me as a minister is how to preach from these texts in a way which both respects the integrity and power of the narrative without endorsing it as historical fact. What matters historically is the vital importance to the people of Israel of being a people. The whole ‘identity forged in the wilderness’ thing is utterly central. Theologically it is central because it is the claim that God chose them and set them apart. The wilderness is the space in which the people are nothing and have nothing except their relationship with the living God and with each other. All is promise, all is faith.
And I do believe that the promise made by God to that people at that time has stood through the millennia and is being fulfilled in our time in the land of Israel. These questions of historicity and significance are deeply relevant to modern disputes. As Christians, let’s bring our brains to the text, let’s do the work grappling with the archaeology rather than accepting what anyone says uncritically. And let’s grow in our understanding of who Jesus was and what he was doing in reconstituting the 12 tribes of Israel in a whole new way, a whole new community, in himself.
This is a complex topic and I doubt I have done it justice here. I do know that we cannot understand the book of Exodus, or the Gospels, or the contemporary situation in Israel without grappling with these questions.
10. What to do?
One week in Israel hardly makes me an expert on Middle East politics, and my personal opinion on who should do what is hardly likely to be of any help or interest to anybody. I am a church leader and a minister of the Gospel. My primary question, then, is about the role of the church in relation to Israel. For 2,000 years the Christian church has been inextricably involved in the land of Israel and the various conflicts, constructions and destructions it has seen. Local Christians have sustained faith, in the land of their Lord, through the centuries. Christians all around the world have sustained a keen interest in the Holy Land, and come, as I did, on pilgrimage if they can. Churches around the world have spent large sums of money on the churches in Israel, and in recent times in support of modern Israel.
How will I place myself in this complex web? What will I choose to pray for and to pay for? Who will I support, and how?
The answer has to come from what we see the main purpose of the church. Yes, Jesus said ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, but the church is not primarily here to mediate peace in the world. Yes, the prophets called for justice for the oppressed, but the church is not primarily here to advocate for the underdogs of the world (besides, human nature being what it is, it is all too easy for those who feel themselves to be victims of oppression to swiftly become oppressors themselves!). Yes, we watch and wait for the return of our Lord, but there is nothing we can do to hasten the day of reckoning (I am highly suspicious of apocalyptic agendas in relation to Israel).
Why is the church here?
The percentage of Christians in Israel is small and shrinking. Ben and I were stunned to learn that only 1% of Israel’s population is Christian, not counting the large number of priests and religious from European and American churches (who have only short-stay visas), and the very large number of Christian pilgrims. Most local Christians are Arab and live in Palestinian areas. Other than the pilgrims (we heard a host of different languages being spoken by various pilgrim groups), most Christian worship is in Arabic, though some, known as Messianic Jews, worship in Hebrew.
My experience in Israel was through the Anglican Church. The Province of Jerusalem covers 5 countries, with an Anglican presence in Israel, Palestine, Syrian, Jordan and Lebanon. In Nablus we met Rev. Ibrahim Nairouz, the parish priest. I was very moved by his cry for our prayers. He said that the Palestinian Christians feel cut off from the rest of the world and forgotten. It is difficult for them to leave Nablus, and hard for him to play an active part of the wider diocese. Water, electricity supplies and internet is controlled by the army and often unreliable. They are often under attack from their Muslim neighbours. We saw their Sunday School rooms, which looked much like any kids rooms in any church in the world, other than an obvious lack of resources. I will be encouraging my Cashmere church to ‘adopt’ this parish, and send messages of support and build relationship.
This we can do. I will pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I am proud of my friends who actively involved in supporting Israel and building links with the Jewish community. I will try to keep up with events, though I don’t have much stomach for world news on the whole.
One week in Israel hardly makes me an expert on Middle East politics, and my personal opinion on who should do what is hardly likely to be of any help or interest to anybody. I am a church leader and a minister of the Gospel. My primary question, then, is about the role of the church in relation to Israel. For 2,000 years the Christian church has been inextricably involved in the land of Israel and the various conflicts, constructions and destructions it has seen. Local Christians have sustained faith, in the land of their Lord, through the centuries. Christians all around the world have sustained a keen interest in the Holy Land, and come, as I did, on pilgrimage if they can. Churches around the world have spent large sums of money on the churches in Israel, and in recent times in support of modern Israel.
How will I place myself in this complex web? What will I choose to pray for and to pay for? Who will I support, and how?
The answer has to come from what we see the main purpose of the church. Yes, Jesus said ‘blessed are the peacemakers’, but the church is not primarily here to mediate peace in the world. Yes, the prophets called for justice for the oppressed, but the church is not primarily here to advocate for the underdogs of the world (besides, human nature being what it is, it is all too easy for those who feel themselves to be victims of oppression to swiftly become oppressors themselves!). Yes, we watch and wait for the return of our Lord, but there is nothing we can do to hasten the day of reckoning (I am highly suspicious of apocalyptic agendas in relation to Israel).
Why is the church here?
- to love God and worship him forever.
- to love one another
- to proclaim the good news
The percentage of Christians in Israel is small and shrinking. Ben and I were stunned to learn that only 1% of Israel’s population is Christian, not counting the large number of priests and religious from European and American churches (who have only short-stay visas), and the very large number of Christian pilgrims. Most local Christians are Arab and live in Palestinian areas. Other than the pilgrims (we heard a host of different languages being spoken by various pilgrim groups), most Christian worship is in Arabic, though some, known as Messianic Jews, worship in Hebrew.
My experience in Israel was through the Anglican Church. The Province of Jerusalem covers 5 countries, with an Anglican presence in Israel, Palestine, Syrian, Jordan and Lebanon. In Nablus we met Rev. Ibrahim Nairouz, the parish priest. I was very moved by his cry for our prayers. He said that the Palestinian Christians feel cut off from the rest of the world and forgotten. It is difficult for them to leave Nablus, and hard for him to play an active part of the wider diocese. Water, electricity supplies and internet is controlled by the army and often unreliable. They are often under attack from their Muslim neighbours. We saw their Sunday School rooms, which looked much like any kids rooms in any church in the world, other than an obvious lack of resources. I will be encouraging my Cashmere church to ‘adopt’ this parish, and send messages of support and build relationship.
This we can do. I will pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I am proud of my friends who actively involved in supporting Israel and building links with the Jewish community. I will try to keep up with events, though I don’t have much stomach for world news on the whole.
11. A sense of the place
I’ve been trying to mentally transpose Israel into NZ so that I can carry in my mind & communicate to others the scale & transitions of geography. Here’s the best I can do.
Israel, as you know, is a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert. To the south is Egypt. To the north is Lebanon and Syria. Across the Jordan river to the east is the Kingdom of Jordan, which heads away into the desert.
Israel pretty much runs north-south: the coast runs in a straight line north-south, as does the Jordan river, from the mountains in the north to the Dead Sea in the south.
These days Isael is 425km long and 115km wide at its widest point.
The main chunk of the Biblical narrative takes place in a long thin strip of hill country west of the river, about 50kms wide, with only a few kms of flat land along the river valley. Only in modern times has Israel included the flat land along the Mediterranean coast (now the Gaza strip up to Tel Aviv and further north to Haifa).
The Jordan river is part of the great ‘Rift valley’ that is the most important feature of this bit of the middle east. In NZ an equivalent might be the Wairarapa. Could you mentally narrow the Wairarapa down a bit, have it rising smoothly all the way to the Hawkes Bay, and picture a river flowing from the Ruahine Ranges near Waipukarau all the way south down to Lake Wairarapa. Image Lake Wairarapa being 35% salt, and 450 m below sea level, and you have the Dead Sea.
In this picture, then, Featherston becomes Jericho.
You’d need to squash the Tararua ranges down and level them out a bit, and lift up the Hutt Valley and the Wellington harbour and include them in the hills too.
Jerusalem is 45kms uphill from Jericho, heading west. 45kms west from Featherston gets you to Lower Hutt. So if you are imaging Lower Hutt without the river valley or harbour, with the hills rolling all the way from Porirua to the Rimutakas, you can plant Jerusalem there, up on a high ridge, with a view west to the sea (on a clear day) and west to the Dead Sea.
From Jerusalem you can go directly north, but this took you through Samaria, which Jesus often did but most people didn’t. Or you can go down east to Jericho (which is near where John was baptising in the Jordan, and not far from the Dead Sea) and north up the river valley. It is 120km as the crow flies till you get to Lake Gallilee. In our mental equivalent map this would get you to Dannevirke from Featherston. So you’ll need a lovely big lake north of Dannevirke, perhaps filling in that basin where my sister-in-law lives called the Takapau plain.
And north from there travel gets harder because you hit Mt Hebron and the hills you’d have to climb to get over to Damascus. At the base of Mt Hebron are hundreds of springs, crystal clear water bursting out between the rocks and flowing south to form the Jordan River.
Or you can go west and come out at the coast at Tyre (which Jesus did once, it doesn’t say why).
Back to Jerusalem, it’s strange for us to imagine the way that cities are built along the ridge tops. Kiwi mountains tend to be rather pointy inhospitable things. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Bethany, Nazareth, Canna – all these are built high up. In Israel it is the valleys (other than the Jordan) which are narrow & craggy.
I was surprised, however, to discover that Mt Zion isn’t really a mountain at all. In fact it is in a bowl surrounded by higher ridges. What made it so significant is that it sticks out over the valley below, sharply dropping away on two sides, so a great spot to defend. And, most importantly, it has its own spring. This is where David chose for his city, and each successive wave of conquest and empire has built its most prized places here.
In NZ terms it reminded me of Karori, with the hills around, dropping away toward Makara & the east coast on one side and westward toward the harbour.
So in your mind’s eye take that whole strip of hill country from Karori up through Tawa, Johnsonville, over to the Hutt. Take away all the trees, and replace them with a scattering of olive trees. Flatten out the hill tops and pack all the ridge lines and hill sides with houses like white lego blocks on their sides. And there you have Jerusalem, together with the various suburbs and ancient villages (including Bethelem) which now are part of the modern city.
One more thing, which is very hard for us kiwis to imagine. You have to build a wall, like nothing that exists in NZ. Very high, with lots of concrete and razor wire. Make it snake all over the place through the hill country. Cut the city up, cut off some of the towns, and put in gates with armed soldiers. Give every person and every vehicle a different status, so that some can go through the gates and some cannot. Give every policeman and solder an automatic rifle and give them permission to shoot to kill anyone who does anything threatening. (A young Palestinian woman was shot last month in the old city for brandishing a pair of scissors)
Sorry to finish on a gruesome note. I hope this is a helpful bit of comparative geography, for those of you who know the places I call home.
Implications of all this for understanding the Bible
I’ve been trying to mentally transpose Israel into NZ so that I can carry in my mind & communicate to others the scale & transitions of geography. Here’s the best I can do.
Israel, as you know, is a narrow strip of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert. To the south is Egypt. To the north is Lebanon and Syria. Across the Jordan river to the east is the Kingdom of Jordan, which heads away into the desert.
Israel pretty much runs north-south: the coast runs in a straight line north-south, as does the Jordan river, from the mountains in the north to the Dead Sea in the south.
These days Isael is 425km long and 115km wide at its widest point.
The main chunk of the Biblical narrative takes place in a long thin strip of hill country west of the river, about 50kms wide, with only a few kms of flat land along the river valley. Only in modern times has Israel included the flat land along the Mediterranean coast (now the Gaza strip up to Tel Aviv and further north to Haifa).
The Jordan river is part of the great ‘Rift valley’ that is the most important feature of this bit of the middle east. In NZ an equivalent might be the Wairarapa. Could you mentally narrow the Wairarapa down a bit, have it rising smoothly all the way to the Hawkes Bay, and picture a river flowing from the Ruahine Ranges near Waipukarau all the way south down to Lake Wairarapa. Image Lake Wairarapa being 35% salt, and 450 m below sea level, and you have the Dead Sea.
In this picture, then, Featherston becomes Jericho.
You’d need to squash the Tararua ranges down and level them out a bit, and lift up the Hutt Valley and the Wellington harbour and include them in the hills too.
Jerusalem is 45kms uphill from Jericho, heading west. 45kms west from Featherston gets you to Lower Hutt. So if you are imaging Lower Hutt without the river valley or harbour, with the hills rolling all the way from Porirua to the Rimutakas, you can plant Jerusalem there, up on a high ridge, with a view west to the sea (on a clear day) and west to the Dead Sea.
From Jerusalem you can go directly north, but this took you through Samaria, which Jesus often did but most people didn’t. Or you can go down east to Jericho (which is near where John was baptising in the Jordan, and not far from the Dead Sea) and north up the river valley. It is 120km as the crow flies till you get to Lake Gallilee. In our mental equivalent map this would get you to Dannevirke from Featherston. So you’ll need a lovely big lake north of Dannevirke, perhaps filling in that basin where my sister-in-law lives called the Takapau plain.
And north from there travel gets harder because you hit Mt Hebron and the hills you’d have to climb to get over to Damascus. At the base of Mt Hebron are hundreds of springs, crystal clear water bursting out between the rocks and flowing south to form the Jordan River.
Or you can go west and come out at the coast at Tyre (which Jesus did once, it doesn’t say why).
Back to Jerusalem, it’s strange for us to imagine the way that cities are built along the ridge tops. Kiwi mountains tend to be rather pointy inhospitable things. Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Bethany, Nazareth, Canna – all these are built high up. In Israel it is the valleys (other than the Jordan) which are narrow & craggy.
I was surprised, however, to discover that Mt Zion isn’t really a mountain at all. In fact it is in a bowl surrounded by higher ridges. What made it so significant is that it sticks out over the valley below, sharply dropping away on two sides, so a great spot to defend. And, most importantly, it has its own spring. This is where David chose for his city, and each successive wave of conquest and empire has built its most prized places here.
In NZ terms it reminded me of Karori, with the hills around, dropping away toward Makara & the east coast on one side and westward toward the harbour.
So in your mind’s eye take that whole strip of hill country from Karori up through Tawa, Johnsonville, over to the Hutt. Take away all the trees, and replace them with a scattering of olive trees. Flatten out the hill tops and pack all the ridge lines and hill sides with houses like white lego blocks on their sides. And there you have Jerusalem, together with the various suburbs and ancient villages (including Bethelem) which now are part of the modern city.
One more thing, which is very hard for us kiwis to imagine. You have to build a wall, like nothing that exists in NZ. Very high, with lots of concrete and razor wire. Make it snake all over the place through the hill country. Cut the city up, cut off some of the towns, and put in gates with armed soldiers. Give every person and every vehicle a different status, so that some can go through the gates and some cannot. Give every policeman and solder an automatic rifle and give them permission to shoot to kill anyone who does anything threatening. (A young Palestinian woman was shot last month in the old city for brandishing a pair of scissors)
Sorry to finish on a gruesome note. I hope this is a helpful bit of comparative geography, for those of you who know the places I call home.
Implications of all this for understanding the Bible
- Jesus & co. did a lot of walking. It really is quite a long way from Gallilee to Jerusalem. 120km is not a distance I’ve ever walked, but he did it quite regularly. And lots of it is very ‘up and down’. And it is often very hot and dry. Don’t know how they did it really.
- Israel has never been a very safe place to live in or get around in.
- Jerusalem is, and always has been, astonishingly impressive, commanding the high ridges with grand buildings
- Gallilee is far away and its towns were small and not at all impressive
- Every place is literally layered with history going back thousands and thousands of years.
- Every place has been destroyed and rebuilt over and over again
- Water is life. Israel exists because it rains in the hills and the fresh water is absorbed by the hills and emerges as pure springs, even high up hillsides.