The biblical Jubilee directly addresses questions of social vision, and offers the promise of freedom from bondage, including the bondage of debt. In a context of social realities that are exclusive, it calls for inclusion, and promises a Sabbath rest not only for the people of God, but also for the land. In Leviticus 25, it becomes clear that without a rest for the land, without the seven cycles of fallow land, there can be no Sabbath for the people of the land. We can examine how the promises offered in the new biotechnologies stand up to such a vision. Bioprospecting is a practice common among the major biotech companies.
Society needs to be specific when it talks about riches and benefits from biotechnology.
When companies promise that biotechnology offers food for a hungry world, this is a good thing. The present challenge is not food production, but rather food distribution. The green revolution of the seventies and eighties vastly increased the capacity of India to produce food and turned that nation into a net exporter of grain. Yet it has not solved the chronic hunger and malnutrition in that country. Jubilee is also about sight for the blind - it has something to say about the truth of our vision of the world around us, about integrity, and transparency.