In certain ages the Lord called forth His prophets. In other times of great darkness He raised up His heresy hunters such as Irenaeus and Augustine since as jewelers and great artists know, Light shines brightest against the dark.
Well I'm not so mystical when it comes to such things, as I think you might suspect. There's plenty of hard cold reality in the teachings of Torah, and a lot that has since been missed in the Gospels as a result of its supposed "fulfillment."
You might enjoy this example of that. My take is that our lack of direct contact with the land has a lot to do with it.