The Credibility of Liberty: The Plausibility of the Jubilee Legislation of Leviticus 25 in Ancient Israel and Judah

Leviticus 25 details legislation for the jubilee, the year concluding seven cycles of seven years in which real property returns to its original family allotment. Many understand the jubilee as an impracticable fantasy while others have sought to uncover evidence of its observance in ancient Israel. In this essay, I move the conversation away from this binary of scholarly perception and instead engage the jubilee from the horizon of its plausibility as an institution in ancient Israelite society. By "plausible," I do not mean that this legislation's enactment was likely or actual; evaluating the institution's "plausibility" is a determination of whether it was credible within the structures of Israelite and Judahite society. I contend that the jubilee was theoretically conceivable in this society because of analogous practices in the ancient Near East and the agrarian society that the Levitical jubilee presumes and in which it makes sense as a plausible institution.