"The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war. Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible? In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as "holy war") or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. Instead, the reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies. Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed identity in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core"-- Provided by publisher

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zlib/Religion & Spirituality/Jacob L. Wright/War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible_6130859.pdf

Cambridge Library Collection

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

Open Access Edition, PT, 2020

lg2831179

sources:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/27EFC7C2865C2D2907696C5B5DB1B2A4

producers:
Cambridge University Press

Cover 1
Half-title page 3
Title page 5
Copyright page 6
Dedication 7
Contents 9
Preface 13
Introduction: Wellhausen, War, and the Creation of a Nation 15
Defeat and the Birth of a New Religious Identity 16
Nation and State 18
From the Priestly Source to Ezra-Nehemiah 22
War Commemoration 24
Purpose and Plan of the Present Book 26
Part I Refugee Memories: Negotiating Relations and Borders with Neighboring States 31
1 Passages to Peace 33
Passage Denied 34
Moses’s Conflicting Memory 39
Commemoration and Legislation 42
David in the Wilderness 44
War Memories as Casus Belli 46
Permits of Passage in an Age of Empires 49
2 Edom as Israel’s Other 51
Israel’s First Homecoming 51
Memories of Edomite Aggression 53
The Politics of Scapegoating 55
Judean Irredentism 57
Implications for the Documentary Hypothesis 59
Contesting Memories 60
Part II Kinship and Commandment: The Transjordanian Tribes and the Conquest of Canaan 63
3 Mapping the Promised Land 65
The Jordan as the Nation’s Border 65
The Wadi Arnon in Deuteronomy 68
The Transjordan in Joshua 71
Contested Territory 73
4 The Nation’s Transjordanian Vanguard 76
The Narrative of Numbers 76
Composition of Numbers 32 78
The Shifting Contexts of the Account 81
Tribes Before Kings 84
The Nation’s Avant-Garde 87
Kinship and Command 89
Performing Peoplehood 92
5 A Nation Beyond Its Borders 93
Moses’s Memory in Deuteronomy 94
Affirming Allegiance in Joshua 96
The Division of the Land 97
Honoring Wartime Service 99
From Celebration to Crisis 101
Nation Versus Territory 103
One Yhwh, One Israel 105
6 Kinship, Law, and Narrative 108
From State Diplomacy to National Belonging 109
Constitutional Patriotism 113
How Does a Text Become Sacred? 115
A Normative Past 117
Part III Rahab: An Archetypal Outsider 121
7 Between Faith and Works 125
Three Early Christian Interpreters 125
First Epistle of Clement 127
Letter to the Hebrews 129
The Epistle of James 130
Christians as Readers of the Jewish Scriptures 130
Josephus 132
Rahab and the Rabbis 134
Conversion and Naturalization 136
The Repentant Rahab 139
From Rahab to Paul 141
8 The Composition of the Rahab Story 143
The Rahab Story as a Narrative Frame 144
The Place of the Rahab Story in the Narrative 146
A City Besieged 149
Edification of a Defeated Nation 153
Belief and Action 155
A New Covenant 157
Inclusion Versus Integration 159
9 Rahab’s Courage and the Gibeonites’ Cowardice 162
Archeological and Biblical Evidence 163
Relationship to Jerusalem’s Temple 166
From Joshua to Saul 168
An Early Memory of Joshua 169
The Composition of Joshua 9 171
From Saul to David 174
Rizpah’s Heroism 176
The Gibeonites, Rahab, and Biblical War Commemoration 178
Part IV Deborah: Mother of a Voluntary Nation 181
10 A Prophet and Her General 183
The Book of Judges as a Bridge 183
An Older Source? 185
Deborah and Gideon 188
The Jael Episode 189
Deconstructing Male Power 191
Martial Valor and Monarchic Rule 194
11 A Poetic War Monument 196
Between Prose and Poetry 197
Repurposing an Older Hymn 198
A National God and Israel’s Unity 204
Religious Unity and American National Identity 206
12 A National Anthem for the North 208
Mobilizing the Nation’s Members 208
Censure of Transjordanian Communities 212
Judah’s Absence 214
The Curse of Meroz 216
Meroz and the American War of Independence 218
A Nation Without a King 222
13 Women and War Commemoration 224
Mothers of Soldiers 224
Political Performances 226
Between Bed and Battlefield 230
Memory as a Moral Imperative 233
14 Jael’s Identities 236
The Kenites’ Solidarity with Israel 236
The Kenites on the Biblical Landscape 238
From Saul to Moses 242
Fellow Travelers 244
Devotion to a Deity 246
Jael as a Kenite and a Jew 248
Conclusions: A Movable Monument and a Portable Homeland 251
Fighting for the King: War Commemoration in the Ancient Near East 251
Saving Holy Hellas: War Commemoration in the East Aegean World 255
From Athens to Jerusalem 258
Back to Wellhausen and the Nation 262
Law, Narrative, and Kinship 264
Bibliography 267
Index of Authors’ Names 283
Index of Biblical References 287
Index of Literary References 292
Index of Subjects 294

The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war.
Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible?
In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as 'holy war') or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. The reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies.
Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed a new and influential notion of peoplehood in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined.
This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, the book shows that war pervades the pages of the Bible because its authors were engaged in an effort to forge a corporate identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies.

2020-11-03