Much of the law in the Hebrew Bible concerns the handling of property and land within ancient Israelite society. According to the traditions in Genesis 12, the Israelite possession of the land is seen as the result of a divine promise that Yahweh made to Abraham. Habel viewed their debt to and dependence on the divine owner of the land as:
According to the Mosaic covenant, the Israelites had to uphold the conditions set by Yahweh in order to receive the blessing of the land. In addition to being a means of acquiring wealth, land also served as a tool for the monarchy's power. To begin with, the concept of divine ownership of the land plays directly into the law found in Leviticus 25:23.
Yahweh is the real owner of the land, and he simply allows the Israelites to live on the land and work it. In all the land that you possess, you shall provide for the redemption of the land. According to Biblical law, the land would lie fallow every seventh year in honor of the Sabbath year.
First, the laws of the Hebrew Bible require Israelites to marry within their tribe so that the land does not move outside that tribe.
NEW TESTAMENT
Most (if not all) New Testament writers share this idea of two possible afterlife destinations. 62 This text dates from the 2nd century BC and is therefore much later than most other texts in the Hebrew Bible. Luke's Gospel contains many parables that emphasize the need to care for the poor in order to obtain rewards in the afterlife.
Furthermore, while some of Jesus' teachings recorded in Luke's Gospel closely align with several principles found in the Hebrew Bible regarding the treatment of the poor, others ignore the necessity of owning physical property or even the necessity of it. The meaning of the story is brought out in the accompanying commentary, that wealth makes it impossible for a man to enter the kingdom. Moreover, the author of Luke-Acts gives several stories about the Christians who lived the commandments of Jesus in their daily lives.
Merely selling one's possessions and giving a portion of the proceeds to the poor was not sufficient to fulfill the teachings of Christ. Later in the story, the narrator tells of Sapphira being questioned by Peter about the price of the land they had sold. This marks a significant development in the worldview of the Hebrew Bible and what would eventually become the New Testament.
For example, the concepts of divine sonship and the inheritance it entails show a great development in theology compared to that found in the Hebrew Bible, in which the son was given only to the Israelites who followed the laws of Moses, receiving in turn the promised inheritance of the land of Canaan. If it is the followers of the law who will be the heirs, the trust is void and the promise is void. For, as discussed in the Hebrew Bible section, those who fell under the tent of the nation promised to Abraham developed into children of God bound by the Mosaic covenant and sharing in the inheritance of the promised land.
Now instead of conforming to the laws of the Hebrew Bible, Christians were to be justified and become children of God by faith and not by works. In a similar sense, Paul writes in his letter to the congregation in Colossae about an "inheritance of the saints in the light" (Colossians 1:12). Instead, Paul wrote of the promised Spirit as part of the inheritance of the children of God, along with abstract wisdom, freedom and knowledge.
In addition to Paul's letters, several other writers of the New Testament further develop the concept of inheritance from what it was in the Hebrew Bible. Furthermore, an even greater contrast is found in the reinterpretation of sonship and the subsequent withdrawal of inheritance found in the letters of Paul.
RABBINIC LITERATURE
This may be due to the fact that the social environment in which the property laws of the Hebrew Bible were written differed greatly from that experienced by Jews in Roman Palestine during the first centuries of the common era. However, the land itself played a major role in the Mishnah; in fact, about “a third of the Mishnah. Therefore, the rabbis had to shape the laws of ownership of the Hebrew Bible to suit a group of people that was widely dispersed across two different foreign empires.
Like the Hebrew Bible, "rabbinic tradition also emphasizes the gravity of actions that violate another's property, equating them with their destruction. The teachings in the Babylonian Talmud take the laws of the Hebrew Bible even further by noting that theft condemns all Israelites, equating theft with murder, and addressing specific situations such as who is responsible for a flooded field that is illegally possessed. In sum, by creating the category of propertylessness, the Mishnah and Talmud redeveloped the laws of the Hebrew Bible.
Another important aspect of property regulation in the Hebrew Bible that was reworked by the rabbis during the first half of the first millennium CE was the concept of charity. The impulse to help the weak and give to the poor does not end with the famous rhetoric of the Hebrew Prophets. Therefore, the need for rabbis to expound the laws found in the Hebrew Bible regarding acts of charity was great.
Furthermore, other social differences from ancient Israel made the laws and practices of the Hebrew Bible impractical or incomplete when applied during the Rabbinic Period, such as leaving portions of the family land unharvested for the poor. In general, rabbinic literature does not modify the laws of the Hebrew Bible dealing with helping the poor. Throughout the laws dealing with the entire marriage process, the rabbis explained the traditions and laws of the Hebrew Bible and made sure that the necessary regulations existed so that the laws could be applied in all situations.
In total, the Mishnah and the Talmuds contain laws on matrimonial property taken from the Hebrew Bible, adapted to fit the traditions of the Rabbinic period, and set forth so that they could be applied to the present society in which Jews lived. As a result of this development, the Hebrew Bible ideal of the firstborn son inheriting a double portion is reworked in the. In short, inheritance by daughters is an example of the ways in which the early rabbis took the laws of the Hebrew Bible, expounded upon them, making them more concrete and more applicable to the specific social and cultural situations in which Jews during the Rabbinic period lived
In summary, the development of rabbinic Judaism was marked by the growing power of the early rabbis and their interpretations of the Hebrew Bible, the Mishnah, and the later commentaries on the Mishnah, the Talmuds. The early rabbis expounded on the property laws of the Hebrew Bible making them more concrete and complete.
CONCLUSION
Another aspect of the concept of divine ownership is reflected in the general property laws of the Hebrew Bible. In addition to the general laws of managing land/property for your own sake, the Hebrew Bible contains numerous laws regarding managing land as a way to help others and honor Yahweh. These and many other commands and traditions from the Hebrew Bible were implemented as an effort to support the poor and needy in society.
The authors of the Hebrew Bible often commanded the Israelites to give to charity, and if they did so generously, then the accumulation of personal wealth was not viewed negatively. Contrary to this abstraction made by the author of the Acts of Luke, the rabbis who compiled the Mishnah and Talmuds expounded on the charitable laws of the Hebrew Bible and implemented programs to assist Jews in following them. This included the creation of a community organization to oversee and enforce the charitable laws of Judaism and to ensure that the poor received the help they were entitled to in the Hebrew Bible.
At the time when the Hebrew Bible was written, Israelites lived on the land of their ancestors with their mispahah. The firstborn son often took over as head of his immediate family and was awarded a double inheritance according to the Hebrew Bible. In addition, the Hebrew Bible outlines the practice of Levirate marriage in the event that a woman's husband dies.
To correct this, the rabbis significantly modified the laws of the Hebrew Bible to better suit their community. One reason the rabbis were able to do this was because the Hebrew Bible did not actually contain many laws on the subject of marriage. Overall, the land/property laws in the Hebrew Bible were written for and applied to the society of the ancient Israelites.
Therefore, in the first few centuries AD, both Jews and Christians began to rework the teachings of the Hebrew Bible in light of their own worldviews and social needs. Christian writers de-emphasized the possession of physical property in anticipation of a future heavenly inheritance, while the rabbis provided legal precision and sometimes innovative adaptations of property laws in the Hebrew Bible. Ultimately, both Christian writers and early rabbis were able to use the land/property laws and concepts surrounding them in the Hebrew Bible and adapt them to better serve their society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
