Promised Land

Promised Land (from " vow " or " promise " ) is in the language of the reformer Martin Luther, the designation of the land of Canaan, which God based on the story of Genesis ( 13:14 f) in the Old Testament of the Bible Abraham for his descendants forever promised. The modern term is "land of promise."

After the exodus from Egypt under Moses and the wilderness wanderings of the Israelites came under the biblical narratives for entry into the Promised Land and land grab of Canaan under the leadership of Joshua, which was fulfilled God's promise to Abraham.

While the Book of Joshua emanating from a centrally executed conquest of all Canaan in a short time, describe the older books Richter and Samuel the land acquisition to be relatively slow and performed only by individual tribes against the sometimes fierce resistance of Philistines and Canaanites process. Thus Jerusalem had been wrested from the Jebusites first under King David.

The biblical promise of the land was adjacent to the anti-Semitism the decisive motive for the Jewish settlement in Palestine since the 19th century and the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 on the basis of Zionism.

The religious idea of ​​the promise land (English promised land ) was also effective in the European colonization of North America, South Africa and other non-European territories.

At the present time the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites is equated with the collection mentioned in the Bible 12 tribes of Israel from the nations. Since 1900 return that is, many Jews the descendants of the tribe of Judah to Palestine. However, even in Israel disputed whether all previously returnees, including particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet Union are at all to be regarded as Jews.

The problem today with the 12 tribes is, in particular, that with the destruction of part of the kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians and the forced separation of the Samaritans after the return of the inhabitants of the sub- kingdom of Judah practically only the tribe of Judah existed under Persian suzerainty. This understood henceforth as the sole legitimate representative of both part -mentioned States. In particular, Maccabees and Hasmoneans, also was the conversion of a large number of other inhabitants of Palestine to Judaism ( for example, the Idumeans ) and later (for example, Khazars ).

The identity of today's Jews with those mentioned in the Bible 12 strains is therefore now no longer exists. The concept of the 12 tribes is to be understood only as a metaphor for all Jews today.

The religious metaphor of the promised land was also used by non-religious Zionism as the ideological justification of the Jewish claim to the whole of Palestine. This approach is however in contradiction to today's reality (see map ), since it does not include the largely undisputed Israeli Negev to Eilat. On the other hand, the concept of the promised land negates the right to existence of Lebanon, one never populated mainly by Jews territory.

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