The Bible: A Fallible Guide

Jimmy Carter's Bible rests on his desk in the Oval Office with a mark to the verse from Micah used in his Inaugural Address, in which the Hebrew sage admonishes the Lord's people "to do justly, and to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God." These days, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance also keeps a Bible close by in his seventh-floor State Department office--next to a book that discusses Israeli borders and a map of the Middle East.

Obviously it would be untenable for a contemporary statesman to base concrete territorial demands on the Bible. But Begin often uses biblical allusions to support a Jewish historical claim--and the Administration does not intend to be caught unaware if he starts to cite the Good Book. Shortly after his election, he said he might discuss biblical references with the President at their first meeting. "He knows the Bible by heart," Begin told TIME Jerusalem Bureau Chief Donald Neff, adding modestly, "I also know some parts."

The parts that Begin knows best are the countless verses of the Old Testament that refer to the existence of Erets Yisrael (the land of Israel) and to God's promise of a homeland for his chosen people. But Scripture is less precise about what the boundaries of that homeland ought to be. One of the earliest references is Genesis 15: 18: "In that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying: Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt [probably not the Nile, but the Wadi el Arish in the Sinai] unto the great river, the great river Euphrates." If modern Israel claimed this vast expanse, it would include not only Damascus and much of modern Syria but parts of Turkey.

Other passages are equally expansive. Followers of Moses who crossed the Red Sea, according to Numbers 34: 3-12, inherited a land that included much of present Israel and parts of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Some Arabs might judge the Lord's injunction to Moses in Deuteronomy 1: 7 as an early example of Zionist expansionism: "turn you, and take your journey, and go to the hill-country of the Amorites* and unto all the places nigh there unto, as far as the great river Euphrates."

Ancient Israel's dimensions varied greatly. At the time of the twelve tribes (see map) the country stretched from Dan to Beersheba, which has become a famous phrase of definition. The country reached its greatest size two centuries later in Solomon's time. Begin has consistently referred to the occupied West Bank as "Samaria and Judea." Says Biblical Scholar Shemaryahu Talmon of Jerusalem's Hebrew University: "The Promised Land always includes Judea and Samaria and sometimes even the eastern side of the Jordan River."

Diplomats might find in the Bible some intriguing ideas about a possible peace settlement. Isaiah 19: 24, for example, foresees a day in which "Israel [shall be] the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." That could be interpreted as the need for a Cairo-Damascus-Jerusalem federation. Ezekiel 47: 22 could be taken to point out that Israelis have a responsibility not just to Jewish immigrants but to the Palestinian Arabs under their jurisdiction: "The strangers that sojourn among you . . . they shall be unto you as the homeborn, [and] they shall have inheritance with you."

The Israeli Premier may not press his luck in matching scriptural references with Carter. Last month, at a meeting with Chief Rabbi (Ashkenazi) Shlomo Goren, the President listened as the rabbi cited a biblical passage but then fumbled for the exact English translation. Without missing a beat, Carter finished the verse for him.

* A mountain tribe that lived among the Canaanites.

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