To understand the intensity of feelings, today, in Israel/Palestine, I feel that one must have an understanding of the historical, scriptural and theological links the people of the region have had over the centuries regarding the land of their promise. It is one thing to feel a personal ownership to land – to place. It is an entirely different thing to feel a personal God-given ownership to land – to place. While most of us brought up in a church, synagogue or mosque, and even in the non-religious secular world, have a memory of stories recalling the lineage of God's land-blessing given and land-blessing taken, as mentioned earlier, it has been my experience speaking to church groups and to universities that the supposed background is not always in place, or if in place, not as clear as it might be. For that reason, I offer an overview of God's scriptural promises to those who are the offspring of the original Semitic peoples, the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples of today, remembering that these scriptural promises are as ‘true’ to history and scripture as was the writer of that time and as is the interpreter of today. These stories are offered because they have shaped our consciousness and our identities, not because they are historical or factual, but because – whether we are religious or secular – these stories have informed our cultures and our understandings of one another.