J. C. de Vos (Univ. Münster): Land in the New Testament: An Example from Hebrews 12

The earth is definitively not the homeland of the Christian believers. Thus, the conviction of the author to the Hebrews (Hebr 12:14–29) and of almost all New Testament authors. He or she summons the addressees to run (sic) to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, namely as firstborns to their heavenly father. In heaven, they can see their father and share in the holiness of God. That is their religious homeland. In my paper, I will use three etic categories, home, way, and land, to describe how the author to the Hebrews plays with different spatial and temporal levels. The addressed Christian believers dwell on earth yet but have had in faith already their real, spiritual home. This such produced time-space consists of a spatial, a social, and a transcendent component—and it seems to be more attractive than earthly live.