The Jubilee in Leviticus 25 : a theological ethical interpretation from a South African perspective

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Jubilee year in Leviticus 25 has received a fair amount of attention towards the end ofthe previous millennium with the movements such as the Jubilee 2000, which campaignedfor the remissions of debt in the so-called Third World. The text thus has a very liberatingimage and this is where the problem lies, because a critical reading of the text creates a farmore oppressive picture. The question then becomes how the biblical critic is to respond,especially when she/he is sympathetic towards the objectives of the Jubilee 2000movement.In this study it is argued that there is only one way to respond and that is to play the criticalrole that biblical scholars have always attempted to play. This means that it would beethically irresponsible for biblical critics to shy away from exposing the oppressive sides of abiblical text. An ideological-critical approach is then proposed which attempts to constructthe world-view or ideology that could be glimpsed from the text. This kind of reading issuspicious of what the biblical text claims and it further attempts to identify political andother interests in the text. An ideological critical reading also takes stock of the 'ideologicalholdings of the interpreter. In this regard the author argues that the history of Apartheid andspecifically the way in which the Bible was used to legitimate Apartheid is one of his mainideological holdings that predisposes him to read in a certain manner.Leviticus 25 is then subjected to very close synchronic scrutiny. Firstly the most salientgrammatical features of the text are identified and secondly it is asked how these featureswere used in order to persuade. This second reading is thus a kind of rhetorical reading thatspecifically focuses on ways in which the relationship between the addressees, the land,YHWH and other groups in the text is portrayed. This enables the author to describe theworld-view or ideology of the authors and addressees of Leviticus 25. These same interestsare also identified in some of the chapters surrounding chapter 25. Eventually this leads todating the composition of this text in the Second Temple Period and it specifically identifiesthe interests of this text with those of the returning Elite.This interpretation presents the text as rather oppressive and instead of preventing povertyit actually reinstated poverty, which means that some dark sides of the text are exposed.The study is then concluded with some theological-ethical observations where it isreiterated that one of the tasks of the biblical critic is to give some voice to people that werevoiceless in the biblical text. The study also shows that despite these dark sides to the text,there still is liberating potential in the Jubilee.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University