Recommended bookWHOSE PROMISED LAND?: COLIN CHAPMAN A Lion International
Paperback.
255pp.
£4.99P
(Reviewed by the Rev David
W Torrance)
This is an important, thought provoking book. Since its first publication in 1983, it has been reprinted twice, then revised in 1985 and revised again in 1989 to take into account the Palestinian intifada ("Uprising"). The author writes with thirteen years experience of living and working in the Middle East. The book contains a wealth of information. The author wants his readers along with him to consider the whole situation in an honest and sincere way with genuine sympathy for both Jews and Palestinians. He warns against quick and easy judgments reminding us that we all, Jews and Gentiles, are accountable to God. The author's personal view is that although "the State of Israel has happened under the sovereignty of God", there is no theological significance about the State of Israel. It is not "the fulfilment, or a preliminary stage in the fulfilment, of all that God promised and predicted in the Old Testament". Here I would wish to disagree. The book contains six chapters. After outlining the conflicting claims to the Land in the Introduction, - Chapter 1 , "Facts and Figures", gives a brief historical survey of the Land from the twentieth century B.C. to the twentieth century A.D. An appeal to history however cannot answer the question "Whose Promised Land?". Chapter 2 , "Call the Next Witness", is an interesting anthology of quotations from the writings of prominent people of widely different viewpoints, Jews, Palestinians and others. Chapter 3, "The Land Before and After Jesus Christ", is an anthology of Scriptural passages relating to the Land. Here inevitably the selection of passages chosen and their interpretation, reflect the theological outlook of the author. The author states that "the prophets looked forward to the complete political and spiritual restoration of the nation in the Land, a restoration which God's purpose for the nation and for the world would be fulfilled ... . In contrast to Jewish writers who developed both literal and spiritual interpretations of the land side by side, the New Testament writers showed no interest in a literal interpretation, since they were silent about the future of the Land. ... The one and only fulfilment of all the promises and prophecies was already before their eyes in the person of Jesus. ... Apart from predicting the destruction of Jerusalem (which took place in A.D. 70) Jesus was silent about the future of the Land". Chapter 4 , "Is There Any Word from the Lord?", emphasises the need for truth and the importance of justice to all parties and warns against non-selective judgments and the temptation to take sides. It contains a call to humility and repentance on the part of all parties. Chapter 5, is an "Epilogue, A Personal Answer". Chapter 6, is an "Appendix" , presenting "a Christian interpretation of Old Testament Prophecy". In reading this book the mind is immensely stimulated. There are however, in my opinion, certain serious deficiencies. Historically and politically, in seeking to understand and assess issues of justice, which the author seeks to do in Chapters 1 and 2, there are several omissions. 1. No real account is taken of the religious opposition of Islam to the creation of the State of Israel on what is claimed to be historic Muslim soil. This opposition is fundamental and has been a determining factor shaping Arab attitudes and Israel's reactions. Some pronouncements from Al-Azhar, the university and Islamic policy in Cairo, would have been appropriate and helpful. 2. No real account has been taken of the part played by the rest of the Islamic world, in guiding and often controlling Palestinian thoughts, attitudes and circumstances and in seeking to prolong their stay in refugees camps. In this connection, the speeches of Col. Nasser of Egypt and other Arab leaders, particularly Syrian are important. 3. No account is taken of the anti-Semitic stand taken by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and of Iraq in siding with Hitler and in agreeing to the "Final Solution", a factor which from an early stage created considerable insecurity and shaped attitudes. 4. No account is taken of the plan advocated by Dag Hamerskold, the secretary to the United nations, to develop all the territory surrounding the 1948 state of Israel, to make it as prosperous as that of Israel so that Palestinians could live in peace and prosperity, a plan which was rejected by the other Arab nations (not by the Palestinians themselves, who of course had no vote). 5. No mention is made of the fact that after the 1967 war, Israel offered to return the Gaza strip (which she never wanted) and all of the occupied territories (with the exception of Jerusalem) on condition of peace with the Arab States. Neither is mention made that the Arab Summit Conference meeting in 1967 rejected Israel's offer and stated, "No negotiation, no peace and no recognition of Israel". Although we cannot excuse Israel's attitude to the Palestinians, it is important to consider the issue of Jew and Palestinian in the wider context. The State of Israel is less than one five hundredth part of Islamic held territory in the Middle east. It is confronted by some twenty countries backed by vast oil wealth which could easily settle the refugees. All these countries, with the exception of Egypt, and now recently Jordan, have remained officially at war with Israel. Chapters 3 and 4, raise several theological issues which can only briefly be mentioned here. 1. The author believes that in terms of God's purpose for the nation and for the world, the Old Testament anticipated a political and spiritual restoration of the nation in the Land. By way of contrast, the New Testament was concerned purely with a spiritual restoration. The fulfilment of the promises concerning the Land are fulfilled in the New Heaven and Earth. Christ fulfils everything. I do not believe that we can rightly contrast the New with the Old in this way as if the New is saying something quite different. The new Testament re-affirms the Old although it carries it to a higher dimension. The Gospel witnessed to in the New as well as in the Old Testament has a physical and material dimension in space and time and does have a literal fulfilment in Christ. If we separate the spiritual dimension of the Gospel which supposedly belongs to the New Testament from the material dimensions of the Gospel which belongs (with the spiritual) to the Old Testament, then ultimately we must accept a dualism between soul and body and between a person's spiritual and material needs. This I believe is unbiblical. The New Testament's concern for the physical needs of the whole person and the resurrection of the body, which is so fundemental to our redemption in Christ, is in harmony with the material spiritual dimension of the Gospel witnessed to in the Old Testament. This the author does not consider or seem to be aware of. 2. The author says that "Everything must be read through the eyes of the Apostles. It is they who, so to speak, give us the right spectacles for a genuinely Christian reading of the Old Testament". This is true and yet the opposite is equally the case. We can only properly understand the New Testament, Jesus and the Apostles, through the eyes of the Old Testament. The Word of God witnessed to in the Old and New Testament, is one and must be interpreted as a whole. A great deal of harm can be done by imagining that we can understand the New Testament on its own. For then we tend to understand it in a gentilised way and when, in the light of it, we turn to the Old Testament we misunderstand it. Many of the New Testament passages quoted in this book admit of a different interpretation if we understand them in their Old Testament context. The author is not consistent, in my view, in the way that he uses the Old Testament to interpret one passage and not an other. For example, in the Old Testament the fig tree represents both Israel and the Land. The author in this context, rightly, I believe, is guided by the Old Testament and interprets the cursing of the fig tree as an acted parable which he believes was fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem and the nation in A.D.70. But he does not accept the guidance of the Old Testament to interpret the next parable of the fig tree which Jesus told, following the disciples expressed astonishment over the fig tree's rapid withering. Having used the Old Testament to guide us in the interpretation of the first parable we must surely use the Old Testament to guide us in interpreting the second parable. This the author declines to do. When Jesus said that he would gather his elect from the four winds, North, South, East and West, he was not simply speaking spiritually and speaking of the Church. He was speaking of the literal restoration of the Jewish People and the restoration of the nation to the Land. In that context, Jesus' words "learn the lesson of the fig tree" that has withered to its roots (the nation that has been utterly destroyed) is deeply significant. When you see it "become green again (that is, the nation restored) know that summer is near". Compare this passage in the Greek with the Septuagint version of Jeremiah 31 verses 35-37 and 33 verses 19-26, which is parallel, and clearly Jesus is speaking of the nation and saying that this "nation" (not "generation" as so often wrongly translated) will never pass away. A comparison of these passages in the Greek indicates that Jesus would seem to have had in mind these passages from Jeremiah when speaking as he did. 3. When the New Testament is silent on matters repeatedly affirmed in the Old Testament, be it the Land or the Ten commandments, the New Testament is simply accepting and affirming or confirming what was earlier said in the Old Testament, not denying it. Moreover, when we interpret the New Testament through the help of the Old Testament, there are several passages, which have a clear reference to Israel, to the Land and to the historic material dimension of the Gospel, for example, our understanding of the Kingdom, the Messiahship and Kingship of Jesus. The author apparently fails to see this. 4. God's covenant with Abraham and his seed and God's blessing of the Land was for the redemption of all mankind and all creation. The covenant (which embraced both the people and the Land) is different from the "signs" of the covenant which were given long after. The temple and its worship, the priesthood and the sacrifices, the creation of the kingship of David, all came years after the establishment of the covenant. They were confirmatory signs of the covenant. The signs were fulfilled in Christ and replaced. In Christ the covenant itself was fulfilled and established. It was and is irrevocable (Romans 9). 5. The author raises the question, "Can God really be behind the creation of the State of Israel, when its creation has given rise to so much injustice and suffering. This is a problem for the author. When God called Israel, he called a sinful People. Only as a sinful People could they represent us who are sinners before God. Because of our sinfulness the author rightly affirms that we must be on our guard against any untoward judgment of them. All the nations of the world are sinful, yet God calls them and is behind their creation. God uses the sinful state of Israel as representative of all the sinful States of the world, that through them he might demonstrate his power to the world and show that all nations are sinful and are accountable as nations to God. This surely is what we are seeing today. We all are accountable to God, Jews and Gentiles, both individually and as nations, as he seeks to bring us to that day when every people and nation will bow the knee and confess that Jesus is lord. The reader must prayerfully and thoughtfully make up his or her own mind concerning "Whose Promised Land?". Feedbackto David Torrance welcomed . '
Faith and the Modern World'
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