Beginning with the historical origins of the jubilee in ancient Israel, this book traces the reinterpretation of the jubilee through the Old Testament, Second Temple literature, and Qumran documents, demonstrating a tendency toward eschatological re-readings with the passage of time.
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John S. Bergsma, Ph.D. (2004) in Theology, University of Notre Dame (Indiana) is Assistant Professor of Theology at the Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio). His scholarship has appeared in Vetus Testamentum, Biblica, JBL, Dead Sea Discoveries, and other journals.
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Scholar investigates the meaning of the jubilee,
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This review is from: The Jubilee from Leviticus to Qumran (Supplements to Vetus Testamentum) (Hardcover)
In Leviticus 25 there "seems to have arisen in early Israelite tribal society...legislation ...that the entire territory controlled by Israel was analogous to a temple estate, and the Israelites themselves were sacred slaves" p 295). Because they were slaves to God himself, they could not be slaves to other Israelites, except on a temporary indentured basis. During the andurarum--the year of the jubilee--these indentured servants were to be returned to their status as free. However, there is little evidence to suggest that the ancient Israelites practiced the jubilee faithfully. Around the concept of the jubilee year was formed a "messianic sense" (p 3), most notably, in Daniel 9 and in some of the "Qumran documents....which speak of a messianic figure who will establish spiritual and social justice for Israel" (p 3). Perhaps "the most provocative Qumran document...is 11QMelchizedek"...an eschatological event...which will bring blessing to the righteous and judgment for the wicked" (p 15). Although there is some disagreement about this among scholars, for the most part, Bergsma argues, the jubilee as an institution "does not look out of place in a second-millennium ancient Near Eastern context" (p 61). Bergsma further maintains that the land was sacred to the Israelites, not because ancestors were buried there, as in many other ancient cultures, but because there existed between the land and the clan a marriage--a marriage or covenant bond resembling that which existed between Israel itself and God. A covenant bond can never be broken. The jubilee would bring perpetual blessedness upon the Israelites and upon all those Israelites who have died. Of course, most current scholars put Daniel as having reached "its final form during the crisis instigated by Antiochus 1V" (p 212). There are many good reasons for this line of reasoning. At any rate, Second Temple Jews frequently took from Daniel a belief that the messiah would arrive approximately when Christ appeared. Indeed, "In Second Temple Judaism the legal and ethical aspects of the jubilee are largely eclipsed by its use as chronological unit, a division of sacred time by which to schematize the past...and the future until the final age: (p 304).
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