Jubilee (biblical)

The Jubilee (Hebrew schenat hajobel, also the year of jubilee, jubilee year, Jubilee, free or year of release ) is a commandment of the Torah ( Lev 25.8 to 55 EU): Every 50th year after the seventh Sabbath of seven years, after each 49 years, the Israelites were to give their subordinates people members a full debt, restore their hereditary land ( land reform ) and debt slavery cancel. The alternative concept of jubilee year 1300 was usual for church calls for a drain - year, in which it comes to forgiveness of sins.

Since the 1990s, many development NGOs relate to the biblical term " Jubilee " to demand a comprehensive debt relief for Heavily Indebted developing countries and a reform of international insolvency proceedings between States. Currently, the alliance Erlassjahr.de - development needs debt to international markets.

Designations

" Jubilee " is the common name in the Bible Science for debt relief, which the Torah commands for each of these 50 years. Already in the Tanach, the Hebrew Bible ( Lev 25,10; Ez 46,17 ), this year was also called " free year " and " year of release ", based on the work as offered peace and relief from debt slaves. The terms " year of jubilee ", " yobel " - and " Jubilee " go back to the Hebrew word jobel for the ram. Its horns were as wind instrument, the trombone noise (Hebrew shofar ) used, which was blown in total Israelite religious occasions. So jobel was transferred to the widely resounding blow the shofar at the opening celebration of a jubilee Day of Atonement, and then this itself ( schenat hajobel ).

The Vulgate translation of the Bible translated the Hebrew word ( schenat ) hajobel onomatopoeic in the Latin ( annus ) iubilaeus ( "Year of joy sound "). This term spread for about 300 in Christianity. Popes used since the High Middle Ages, to proclaim the adoption of ecclesiastical penalties, and later for special church festival years ( Holy Year ) in different occasions and themes. From there, the foreign word originates anniversary. About the Luther Bible penetrated the German expression in sayings a ( " blue moon ").

Bible

Torah

The Torah is the revelation of YHWH, the God of Israel, who had introduced himself to his people through his liberation in the Exodus from Egypt, introduced (Ex 20.1 et seq.) It justifies the demanded socially just society and a lot of concrete rights for poor minorities as a binding law of that liberating God.

This experience of God according to that was considered "promised land " as a gift. The overriding principle of the biblical land and property law is the word of God ( Lev 25:23 EU): ". Mine is the land, and ye are strangers and sojourners with him," Because all the inheritances of the Israelites were " leased " only by God, are the alleged landowners only "foreigners" and "guests" as well as their dependent Jews or non-Jews. This justifies the Torah the commandment of jubilee (Lev. 25.8 to 31 EU):

After all fieldwork should like to rest in a sabbatical year during this year. Every Israelite should be of God, the actual landowners, only " leased " land repaid in full if he had it in emergencies must be divested either through repurchase or return. In debt slavery fallen Israelites should be released unconditionally (even from non-Israelite men). Sold and Bank Owned Land ( except houses in walled cities and the sanctuary promised lands ) were returned back to the original owner or his lawful heirs without compensation from the hands of strangers, and all debts were to adopt them.

Impoverished, emerging dependency landless This redistribution of land ownership should restore the opportunity offered by God equality of all Israelites at least once per generation, socioeconomic, thus providing a perspective for the future, require the landowners for their release and give them a new start together. Human possession and domination are therefore not eternal, but must be regularly changed in favor of the dispossessed, by the will of the God of Israel. The Jubilee was always on Yom Kippur, the 10th day of Tishri, and begin to be proclaimed with trumpets throughout the country.

Prophecy

Whether this Toragebot before and after the Babylonian Exile ( 586-530 BC) was effectively enforced is uncertain. Land acquisition by the royal court as defined by the example story 1 Kings 21 describes ( Naboth's vineyard ), the sharp social critique of landlordism and debt slavery in Amos and Hosea ( 8th century BC) and post-exilic salvation commitments as 61:1 f EU, the fulfillment of the commandment Lev 25 expect from the future Messiah, to the contrary.

After about 1000 BC, the Kingdom of Israel was established as Erbdynastie, was created under King Solomon, one of the surrounding empires analog latifundia, which continued after the collapse of his empire in the successor states of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The royal court was suitable to become free of hereditary land Israelite farmers or forced its sale by high taxes. In contrast, since about 850 BC were prophets, the God of the law of the dispossessed remembered the kings of Israel and Judah (1 Kings 21 EU; On 2 EU; Jer 34,8 ff EU) practiced and sharp social criticism of the conduct of the haves ( for example, at the 5.11 f EU):

" Therefore because you suppressed and take of them high fees to seed, ye shall not dwell in houses that have built her of ashlars the poor. For I know your transgressions, which are so much, and your sins are so great because you pressed the righteous and take bribes and [ was right where spoken ] in the gate the poor oppressed. "

The promise of a just future for the currently oppressed and afflicted, is here to vicious accusations against the oppressors; foreign policy defeats be interpreted as an inevitable consequence of internal political corruption of the law by the haves. This prophetic critique shows that the ruling classes in both sub- kingdoms of Israel the commandment of the jubilee disregarded or had never followed anyway.

In the exilic and post-exilic prophecy of salvation (since 586 BC) was the equitable redistribution of land, abolition of debt slavery and thus the social contradictions then an integral part of the eschatological hope for the future. So promises 61:1 EU, God's future Messiah would proclaim a Jubilee for the poor:

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me. He has sent me, so I bring good news to the poor, and bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of the bound liberation, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord ... "

In Isaiah 65,21 f EU, it is also stated:

" They shall build houses and inhabit them, and they shall plant vineyards and enjoy even fruit. You do not build so that another lives in their house, and they do not plant so that another enjoys the fruits. "

The Toragebot the jubilee remained so despite his extensive historical non-compliance as hope of an end-time just social order without exploitation, in which all live and work together and enjoy the fruits of their labor can be obtained.

New Testament

Jesus of Nazareth opened its occurrence, according to Lk 4:18 ff EU in the synagogue of Capernaum with the quote of the promise of an eschatological jubilee ( 61:1 ):

" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me. He has sent me, so that my arms I bring the good news; to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. "

He commented on this quote from the Bible with the single sentence: "Today this scripture passage that you just heard is fulfilled. " He expressed the hope that his work will realize the offered Jubilee finally, this forgotten commandment remained so valid.

Jesus' beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12 EU) say to the currently poor, mourners, powerless and persecuted, that they already belong to the kingdom of God, and the earth would continue to possess (the land, the ground ). Against the background that the landowners did not meet the Jubilee bid, his permission for food collection on their fields in Mk 2:23-28 EU can be understood: In acute famine this work is permitted on the Sabbath, because the Sabbath commandment to the welfare of the people I serve. A landowner, who asked him how he could inherit eternal life, Jesus invited by Mk 10:21 ff EU to task all his belongings in favor of the poor and declared this invitation to his disciples as (only rarely or not followed ) precondition for entry rich in the kingdom of God. With his surprise visit to one of the then hated and marginalized Jewish collector of Roman taxes ( " tax collector " ) Jesus moved him to report to the poor looted Good fourfold (Luke 19.8 EU).

At this Jesus tradition, the community property of the Jerusalem church followed up on that Acts 2:44 describes EU: Acts 4:32-37 EU "All who had believed were together and had all things in common. " Reaffirms that the community property ensures that no church member shortage suffered more: the allusion to Deuteronomy 15.4 EU, where the overcoming of poverty is identified as a target of the sabbatical year, which is the adoption year basis. The specific of the community property early church minutes was Acts 11:27-30 EU load balancing between rich and poor communities, embodying the revealed in the miracle of Pentecost task of the whole Church: the eschatological unity of all people in God's kingdom ( the Shalom or the peace of nations, the anticipate final adoption year) and to initiate.

Talmud

In the Talmud, the commandment of jubilee was abolished for practical reasons: The Jews no longer belonged to the land of Israel, even the biblical prohibition of interest proved to be unfeasible in the Roman Empire. The Toraschutzrechte were preserved in the form of a detailed relief of the poor under the umbrella term of mercy.