by Robert Sungenis

In the April 2005 issue of First Things, Gary A. Anderson, professor of Old Testament at Notre Dame University, penned the article: “How to Think About Zionism.” One thing in Dr. Anderson’s favor is that he hits the essence of the debate at the starting gate. He confidently indicates that “Any discussion of the modern Zionist movement must begin with the biblical claim that the land of Canaan was given by God to the people of Israel. And any discussion of that claim leads back to the call of Abraham in Genesis 12 and its immediate literary context.”

 

So far so good. Anderson has taken the argument out of the political realm and put it right where it belongs. But there is a reason Anderson wants to bring the discussion to a biblical level, for the rest of the article is Anderson’s attempt at providing a theological basis for why the Jews should possess, indefinitely, the modern-day land of Palestine. In brief, Anderson believes from his study of Scripture that the Jews have a divine entitlement to Israel. He states, for example, that the promise of land to Israel is “both irrevocable and unfulfilled”; that “the Bible would seem to allow only one answer: the return to Zion is the beginning of the messianic era.”; “I truly believe that God’s promises to the Jewish people have not come to an end, and that those promises are linked inextricably to the land...” ... “we must insist that the promises of Scripture are indeed inviolable and that Israel’s attachment to this land is underwritten by God’s providential decree,” and he ends with “Is the return to Zion part of God’s providential design and eternal promise to His people Israel? I believe that it is.”

Based on Scripture, I assert that Dr. Anderson is wrong. Having published several books on biblical interpretation, I can confidently offer the critique that Dr. Anderson’s interpretation of Scripture is colored more by his personal preferences than by a thorough exegesis of the relevant texts.

The first indication that Dr. Anderson is on the wrong track is the manner in which he attempts to dismiss the assertions of others that the promises of land to Israel have already been fulfilled (which entails that there is no future fulfillment to be anticipated). Referring to the divine promise of giving land to Israel, Dr. Anderson argues:

Some would insist that it has been fulfilled. They would point out that much of the book of Joshua is devoted to showing precisely how the land promised to Abraham came under the control of the Israelite tribes. But to this it must be answered that the book of Joshua is not part of what the Jewish canon (and Jesus himself in the Gospels) identifies as “The Torah.” At the end of this collection of five book, Moses and the Israelite tribes are still waiting to enter the promised land.

In all my years of biblical studies, I have never seen anyone of repute offer such argumentation to defend the right of Jews to possess the land of Palestine. Essentially, Dr. Anderson is telling us that we can dismiss the rest of the Bible from the discussion simply because the Jews decided that the “Torah” was separate and distinct in relevance and authority from the rest of the Hebrew canon. I don’t know any rabbis that make such a dichotomy in Holy writ, let alone a Christian exegete that is supposed to regard the whole Bible as his authority. What’s even more puzzling is that Anderson doesn’t even offer a qualified reason for this novel dichotomizing of Scripture. He just assumes that his reader is going to accept the premise of “The Torah’s” superiority in answering the question of the divine promises of land merely because he asserts there is a distinction.

The only attempt at offering a rationale for his novelty is Anderson’s question-begging reference to 2 Chronicles 36:23 in which he asserts that the last book of the Hebrew canon contains the same description as the last book of Torah, namely, Deuteronomy 34:1-4's depiction of the “people waiting just outside the land for the moment when God will bring it home.” Anderson wants to leave the impression that Deuteronomy and 2 Chronicles have somehow been elevated above the intervening history of Israel’s occupation of Palestine and thus both stand incomplete without some divine fulfillment in the distant future, supposedly being accomplished in our day.

Here are the facts, however.

A) The Torah is not some type of ‘canon within a canon’ that possesses some special authority with which to answer the question of whether the divine promises to Israel have been fulfilled. Neither Scripture, the Fathers, the medievals, nor even any reputable modern scholar with which I am aware has ever argued on that basis. Anderson’s claim that “Jesus himself in the Gospels” made such a distinction for the Torah is also with any evidence. Jesus also quoted from the Psalms, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Hosea, Zechariah and Malachi, showing that He understood them just as authoritative as the books of Torah. If the argument is raised that Jesus did not quote from Joshua, Judges or Ruth, neither did any other writer of the New Testament, but that is not the criterion for how the Church determines their divine inspiration and canonicity.

B) We wouldn’t expect Deuteronomy to remark on the actual acquisition of land in Palestine since that was not the book’s purpose. It is titled “Deuteronomy” because it is concerned about the giving of the Second Law, after the Israelites had transgressed the First Law given in Exodus. To claim that the promises of land to Israel have not been fulfilled simply because Deuteronomy doesn’t address the issue is like saying that Matthew, Mark and John didn’t believe Jesus ascended into heaven because they don’t bother to mention it in their Gospels.

C) Regarding the divine fulfillment of land promised to Israel, not only does the book of Joshua give evidence for it, it does so in the most definitive and absolute manner. Joshua 21:43-45 states:

43 Thus the LORD gave to Israel all the land which he swore to give to their fathers...45 Not one of all the good promises which the LORD had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

To which promises are Joshua 21:43-45 referring? None other than the promises God made to Abraham in Genesis 12-22, the very ones Anderson says are limited to the Torah. This inspired Scripture of Joshua tells us that the Lord fulfilled ALL those promises in the Torah concerning the giving of land to the Jews, with the express implication that there is no other land acquisition to fulfill.

This is not the only time Scripture makes such a definitive conclusion that God fulfilled His promise of land to Israel. After Solomon ascended to the throne and was just about to build the temple, he reminds the Israelites how God fulfilled His promise of giving the land to the Jews. 1 Kings 8:56 states: “Blessed be the LORD who has given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised; not one word has failed of all his good promise, which he uttered by Moses his servant.” Notice it was “Moses” who was given those promises, and thus Solomon acknowledges the link between himself and the Torah, and thus states, as did Joshua, that “not one word has failed of ALL his good promise.”

Once again, Scripture assures us that the promises of land have, indeed, been fulfilled as the Jews come back from 70 years of captivity in Babylon. If Anderson had read the commentary on his chosen book of “2 Chronicles” in Nehemiah 9:7-8, he would have read these definitive words concerning how God already fulfilled his promise of land to Israel:

7 You are the LORD God, Who chose Abram And brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, And gave him the name Abraham. 8 You found his heart faithful before You, And made a covenant with him To give him the land of the Canaanite, Of the Hittite and the Amorite, Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite and the Girgashite – To give it to his descendants. And You have fulfilled Your promise, For You are righteous.

Notice that Nehemiah says that God already fulfilled the very promises given to Abraham that Dr. Anderson says are still “irrevocable and unfulfilled.” Obviously, Nehemiah, inspired by God to write his commentary, doesn’t see a disjunction between Torah and the rest of the Hebrew canon that Dr. Anderson so desperately wishes to see. For that matter, there is no passage in the whole of Scripture that sees such a disjunction. It is apparently, then, an artificial and arbitrary distinction invented by Gary Anderson to further the cause of Zionism in Palestine. Since the promise of land has already been fulfilled, the only thing that remains “irrevocable and unfulfilled,” according to St. Paul in Romans 11:25-29, is the salvation of Jews who wish to come to Christ. The promise of salvation will never be taken away, but that has nothing to do with a piece of real estate in Palestine.

In conclusion, we can safely agree with Dr. Anderson that “any discussion of the modern Zionist movement must begin with the biblical claim that the land of Canaan was given by God to the people of Israel,” but once that discussion begins, it is unconscionable that any exegete of Sacred Scripture would argue that because Deuteronomy doesn’t mention Israel’s land acquisition of Canaan we can then conclude that God hasn’t yet fulfilled His promise. Judaism’s view of the Torah is not the Christian basis for understanding Scripture. That issue was settled 2000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross. Gary Anderson should know better.

Robert A. Sungenis, M.A., Ph.D. (cd).
President: Catholic Apologetics International
May 20, 2005

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