Property Rights and the Bible

[Sir Andrew]

I've been thinking about this for a while now after it came up in a debate and I thought I'd post this question to see how other people answer this.

Basically, the central question is whether or not the Israelites coming out of Egypt had a right to the 'promised land'. As I understand it, they emigrated from it to move to Egypt because of drought and famine, and then were enslaved and before being liberated generations later by god. But do they still own the property after generations and other people had already settled there and developed it, and had children?

Now one thing I can't wrap my head around is the notion that the Israelites (a collective) owned a general area of land that was being occupied by other people. If they knew exactly whose property had belonged to whom and which descendants that property should go to, that would be a different matter, wouldn't it?

Any thoughts?

[Brule]

If the Jewish/Christian god exists and one believes in him, then there certainly is a case to be made for making Israel a Jewish homeland. At one time the Zionist movement even included some Muslims, but not so much anymore.

Now in reality where gods don't decide who owns what, no collective group have an inherent right to a land. But the modern country of Israel certainly can claim ownership of the land it occupies. Not because of a god but because that little country is an oasis of freedom in that entire region.

Edited February 22, 2009 by Brule

[The Wrath]

It's being a relative oasis of freedom isn't even the reason why modern Israelis have a right to their land. They have a right to it because--even if you assume that the land was illegitimately taken from the Arabs in 1948--hardly anyone still living there had anything to do with it. There isn't a plot of land on earth that hasn't, at some point in history, been forcibly taken from people who had the right to stay on it. Such grievances do not pass to future generations.

[A is A]

If the Jewish/Christian god exists and one believes in him, then there certainly is a case to be made for making Israel a Jewish homeland. At one time the Zionist movement even included some Muslims, but not so much anymore.

Now in reality where gods don't decide who owns what, no collective group have an inherent right to a land. But the modern country of Israel certainly can claim ownership of the land it occupies. Not because of a god but because that little country is an oasis of freedom in that entire region.

No country owns land. A proper government protects the rights of the citizens to own land.

[Grames]

Basically, the central question is whether or not the Israelites coming out of Egypt had a right to the 'promised land'. As I understand it, they emigrated from it to move to Egypt because of drought and famine, and then were enslaved and before being liberated generations later by god. But do they still own the property after generations and other people had already settled there and developed it, and had children?

Abandoning land surrenders claim to it after a certain amount of time, a few years. Those who actually occupy the land and mix their labor with it cause it to be theirs.

But how do you argue against God's pronouncements with people who accept God?

[A is A]

I've been thinking about this for a while now after it came up in a debate and I thought I'd post this question to see how other people answer this.

Basically, the central question is whether or not the Israelites coming out of Egypt had a right to the 'promised land'. As I understand it, they emigrated from it to move to Egypt because of drought and famine, and then were enslaved and before being liberated generations later by god. But do they still own the property after generations and other people had already settled there and developed it, and had children?

Now one thing I can't wrap my head around is the notion that the Israelites (a collective) owned a general area of land that was being occupied by other people. If they knew exactly whose property had belonged to whom and which descendants that property should go to, that would be a different matter, wouldn't it?

Any thoughts?

The concept of rights was not understood for thousands of years after this event. It is anachronistic to apply the concept as understood today to the actions of how people behaved back then. Various tribes and societies occupied and controlled land by the force of killing one's enemies. If some group who was able to kick you off the land, you were out and they were in: might made right. Thus, the Israelites may have thought that their god promised them the land, but, as history has demonstrated, when some group with greater might came along, they were kicked out.

[TheEgoist]

Well, one big falsehood is that an entire of nation people wandered out of Egypt and into one of the harshest environments on Earth to look for a country so really, the question is not based in reality

[volco]

Actually the first code of law, Hammurabi's, dealt 80% with private property issues. I'll try to find the link with transcription.

The tables of Moses said very little of property rights.

[Dingbat]

My knowledge of the bible, Israelites, and much of history is very flimsy.

No country owns land. A proper government protects the rights of the citizens to own land.

I think you are correct.

To elaborate more:

Since property rights require a government, or a commonly acknowledged authority of somekind, that maintains the property agreements, in the biblical context, there are two possibilities for this authority: either the leaders of the Israelite tribes or God. In the first case, when the Israelites left their promised land and were enslaved in Egypt, their property was lost because their property authority, the tribe leaders, were compromised. If it is God, then yes it is their property still since it's God and what God says goes.

But, in reality, there is no God so you cannot make a claim on property based on this. (If there is a God then he did a bad job living up to his promise.) And, I don't even think there ever was any mass enslavement of Jews in Eygpt. The formation of Israel is justified on matters unrelated to religion. I believe the Jewish settlers that moved into Palestine did so by legitimately buying land. Even then, comparatively speaking, the Israeli government is a more rational authority than the Palestinian social order prior, and the property rights are legitimized under that Israeli government.

[Maximus]

The tale of the Exodus was written to give a certian legitamacy, in the eyes of the Hebrews, to thier history. The fact is that there is no historical evidence whatever for the Exodus, certainly not in the extensive records of the Egyptians. According to modern scholarship, the Hebrews were Cannanites. They were poorer hill-dwellers who moved into the cities (really, large villages by our standards) which were abandoned due to severe drought. Reference the work of Israili archeologists Israel Finelstein and Neil Asher Silbermann in thier book The Bible Unearthed.

"...an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context."

There never was large-scale mass slaughter as written in the Biblical stories. They made it up.

[A is A]

Actually the first code of law, Hammurabi's, dealt 80% with private property issues. I'll try to find the link with transcription.

The tables of Moses said very little of property rights.

I'm not questioning whether they had the concept of property, but they had no justification of the concept of rights as it relates to property. After all, the 10 Commandments says: do not steal. The Hammurabi Code is basically a list of do's and don'ts.

If any one lose an article, and find it in the possession of another: if the person in whose possession the thing is found say "A merchant sold it to me, I paid for it before witnesses," and if the owner of the thing say, "I will bring witnesses who know my property," then shall the purchaser bring the merchant who sold it to him, and the witnesses before whom he bought it, and the owner shall bring witnesses who can identify his property. The judge shall examine their testimony—both of the witnesses before whom the price was paid, and of the witnesses who identify the lost article on oath. The merchant is then proved to be a thief and shall be put to death. The owner of the lost article receives his property, and he who bought it receives the money he paid from the estate of the merchant.

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If any one receive into his house a runaway male or female slave of the court, or of a freedman, and does not bring it out at the public proclamation of the major domus, the master of the house shall be put to death.

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CODE.HTM

[Brule]

No country owns land. A proper government protects the rights of the citizens to own land.

A poor choice of words on my part, I should have said "governed" and not own, but governments do own land. Whether they should own land is another question. Cuba owns land immorally. Then again there's military bases, police stations, and courthouses which all serve legit government purposes and require land. There's also situations like the Homestead Act where government gave control of the land over to those whom worked it. I'm not that familiar with Israeli settlements which may be similar to homesteading. (I really don't know the details)

[Brule]

It's being a relative oasis of freedom isn't even the reason why modern Israelis have a right to their land. They have a right to it because--even if you assume that the land was illegitimately taken from the Arabs in 1948--hardly anyone still living there had anything to do with it. There isn't a plot of land on earth that hasn't, at some point in history, been forcibly taken from people who had the right to stay on it. Such grievances do not pass to future generations.

Would you say Israel has no more right to the land in its borders than Iran does to the land in its borders? Israel exists surrounded by countries that have little respect for individual rights. If it was in their self-interest Israel would be entirely moral to expand by taking over a country like Syria if they brought individual rights with them. That wouldn't be a great decision on their part for obvious reasons. I don't see where Israel's only right to exist is because they happen to be the ones who control the land at this moment. (or even the last 50 years)

[The Wrath]

Would you say Israel has no more right to the land in its borders than Iran does to the land in its borders? Israel exists surrounded by countries that have little respect for individual rights. If it was in their self-interest Israel would be entirely moral to expand by taking over a country like Syria if they brought individual rights with them. That wouldn't be a great decision on their part for obvious reasons. I don't see where Israel's only right to exist is because they happen to be the ones who control the land at this moment. (or even the last 50 years)

As someone else already pointed out, "countries" do not have land rights. Their governments are merely charged with protecting the land rights of their people. Individual Iranians have as much right to the land that they personally own, as you and I do to our own land--provided that they aren't involved in some criminal enterprise or terrorist group.

Israel is certainly freer than its neighbors, but what I'm saying is that that is not the basis for the property rights of individual Israelis. Individual Israelis have rights to their land because they did not forcibly take them from anyone else. If you assume, for the sake of argument, that Arabs were unjustly evicted from their homes in 1948, that still does not take away the property rights of modern Israelis, since they had nothing to do with it.

In terms of taking over Syria, etc., you are really talking about a different subject. You're talking about Israel's right to defend its citizens. I am talking solely about individual property rights...every person, no matter if they live in a free country or a dictatorship, has the same moral right to the property that they acquired by non-forcible means.