Israel, The Land, The Church...What Does The Bible Say? - Part 3

Quotes from Jesus and the Land by Gary M Burge, Baker Academic, 2010

What the New Testament does not say

Perhaps it is helpful to begin by suggesting what views are foreign to the New Testament itself. There is no suggestion, for example, that in some manner Christians may now assume for themselves the land promises given to the patriarchs. Despite the clear New Testament argument that in faith followers of Christ can make a defensible claim to the legacy of Abraham, even to be called the "children of Abraham," still, the promise of that legacy - the land - is never claimed. The New Testament shows no interest in building a Christian Holy Land, no passion for constructing a kingdom in the name of Christ that might be centered at Jerusalem. We hear no calls in the New Testament that would soon become familiar to Byzantine and European armies.

This alone is remarkable. The Church was born into a Jewish world saturated with debates about territorial faith, and it chose - deliberately - not to compete as yet one more territorial religion. As we have seen, the impetus for this decision no doubt came from its Lord. The Gospels show us with keen subtlety how Jesus navigated these debates and how he dislodged his own followers from the passions that inflamed territorial movements of his day.

Neither is there any interest in the New Testament to look at the Hebrew Scriptures and Judaism and validate their territorial claims. The New Testament community did not share in the growing momentum within the first century to make the Holy Land exclusively Jewish once more. Throughout the entire century including the great war of AD 66 the followers of Jesus separated themselves from Jewish territorialism. To read the Old Testament prophetic promises into that world of Romans and Zealots might well have been seen as fantastic and perhaps naive. If the identity of the true descendants of Abraham was on the table for discussion, then simple calls for Jewish fulfillment and Christian allegiance would have sounded odd. Christian theology asked withering questions about territorial religion, especially of the sort found in Judea.

Land and politics in Jesus' world

In the volatile climate of first-century politics -among a people living under the harsh realities of the Roman military occupation - we should not expect a public teacher like Jesus to speak explicitly about the land and its rightful owners. To exhibit resistance to Rome is to run up against a skilled army which is watching for signs of subversion. To show cooperation with Rom is to run up against fellow Jews for whom such sympathies are intolerable. In every explosive political context (both today and in antiquity), people with opinions must remain opaque to the many listeners standing in the shadows who are choosing sides.

Two initial observations deserve attention. First, Jesus is surprisingly silent with regard to the territorial aspirations and politics of his day. The national ambitions of Judaism under Rome constantly pressed Jewish leadership to respond. Either Judea was capitulating to the occupation or Judea had to organize to defeat it. However, Jesus is oddly silent about the debate. Moreover Jesus is curiosly receptive to contact with the occupiers. In Matthew 8:5-13, he responds to the request of a Roman centurion whose valued servant was ill. Here we find no repulsion of the soldier, no condemnation of Gentiles, but rather we find receptivity and welcome. He says of the Roman: "Not even in Israel have I found such faith" ( 8. 10 ). What emerges is a general impression that Israel’s national ambitions tied to reclaiming the land live on the margin of Jesus’ thinking.

There was a Roman law (now well known) that if a Roman soldier wanted a defeated subject to be his porter, he could demand it. This rule included use of the person's donkey and cart as well. But the law limited this service to one (Roman) mile. Although this provision for forced labor was deeply resented, in Matthew 5.41 Jesus announces that if you are told to go one mile in such a situation, go two miles! And he says more. In 5:44 he commands his followers to love “their enemies” and pray for those who persecute them. There are certain allusions to the Roman occupation that not only deny political resistance but were no doubt inexplicable to Jesus’ followers. In a word, Jesus is strangely unsympathetic to attitudes that would demand resistance to Roman and the struggle for the land as religious duties.

However, in an important passage, Jesus is tested by those who chose aggressive resistance.

Following the removal of the corrupt and violent Archelaus (son of Herod 1) in AD 6, the subsequent political disruption that brought direct Roman rule to the land inspired new forms of Jewish resistance. Instability and reorganization in AD 6 presented an ideal opportunity for this agenda.

For many Jews Roman taxation had become a burdensome symbol of Israel's enslavement and it was widely believed that it was the basis of Judea's financial value to the empire. In AD 6, tax revolts sought to lessen this value. Mark 12.13-17 records Jesus confronted by "Pharisees and Herodians" two groups with deep, though different, concerns about the occupation. Their question concerning taxes ("Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?" RSV) is not innocent but a veiled, opaque public test. When Jesus inspects a coin, sees Caesar's image, and directs them to "render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's," we can fairly interpret this as a refusal to support the tax revolt. Some scholars see this revolt as the beginning of the Zealot movement (Antiquities, 18.1) and this passage as Jesus' explicit denial of their agenda. The kingdom he advocated could not be co-opted by nationalistic movement that sought to win back the land by force.

Matthew records an even more direct test. In Matthew 17:24-27 tax collectors ask Jesus’ disciples if he “pays the tax.” In this case it is the annual Temple tax - an entirely different matter from the tax revolt against Rom. nevertheless the half-shekel tax was controversial and denied by some (including Qunmran) as an intervention of the Pharises.

Jesus acknowledges that such taxes are the prerogative of kings who place these burdens particularly on those who are not their sons. Jesus suggests that sons (of kings) do not pay such taxes but he will pay so as not to bring offense. Jesus then performs a miracle where Simon Peter finds a coin in a fish's mouth and pays up. Once again Jesus does what is required, conforming to those "kings" who would levy taxes. Cooperation is chosen above resistance; compliance is endorsed over refusal.