Leviticus 25âs History of Inspiring Freedom as a Moral Challenge to Literary-Historical Interpretation
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Abstract
Though Leviticus 25âs description of the Jubilee sounds unrealistically utopian to many biblical scholars, the Jubilee ideal has stimulated many movements for freedom and economic reform in the last 500 years. It most famously motivated enslaved people to resist and abolitionists to challenge the institution of slavery. Today it continues to inspire reform movements for land redistribution and fair housing, for sovereign debt relief, and for developing environmentally sustainable economies. The contrast between scholarly assessments of the chapterâs meaning in its literary and ancient historical contexts and its proven power to inspire movements for freedom that were unimaginable to its writers poses a moral challenge to the conventional methods of biblical scholarship. This article describes the Jubileeâs ideological context in four historical settings: in Israelâs ancient Middle Eastern political economy, in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century movement to abolish slavery, in contemporary movements for economic reform, and in modern biblical studies to explore how biblical scholars can credibly account for the chapterâs historical and contemporary power to inspire mass freedom movements in their descriptions of the meaning of Leviticus 25.
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Leviticus 25âs History of Inspiring Freedom as a Moral Challenge to Literary-Historical Interpretation
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by James W. Watts in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Though Leviticus 25âs description of the Jubilee sounds unrealistically utopian to many biblical scholars, the Jubilee ideal has stimulated many movements for freedom and economic reform in the last 500 years. It most famously motivated enslaved people to resist and abolitionists to challenge the institution of slavery. Today it continues to inspire reform movements for land redistribution and fair housing, for sovereign debt relief, and for developing environmentally sustainable economies. The contrast between scholarly assessments of the chapterâs meaning in its literary and ancient historical contexts and its proven power to inspire movements for freedom that were unimaginable to its writers poses a moral challenge to the conventional methods of biblical scholarship. This article describes the Jubileeâs ideological context in four historical settings: in Israelâs ancient Middle Eastern political economy, in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century movement to abolish slavery, in contemporary movements for economic reform, and in modern biblical studies to explore how biblical scholars can credibly account for the chapterâs historical and contemporary power to inspire mass freedom movements in their descriptions of the meaning of Leviticus 25.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1035 | 243 | 27 |
| Full Text Views | 215 | 18 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 511 | 47 | 2 |
