Partnership Remembered: Erets Canaan as Co Provider and Co-Enforcer in H

Abstract

The article contrasts two views of “land” in two texts which both originated in priestly circles. The first text is the Priestly creation narrative, and here the article leans heavily on the work of Norman Habel and the Earth Bible Project. For Habel, Genesis 1 is the story of the loss of partnership between God and Earth. The article then describes the portrayal of the “land of Canaan” or “Erets Canaan” in the Holiness Legislation and shows how the old partnership is remembered and rekindled. In the second part of the article the earlier work of Esias Meyer is used. The objective of this article is to contrast these two views of relationship to land and to make clear that the Holiness Legislation is much less anthropocentric than its Priestly predecessor in Genesis 1.