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3 - Judah’s Bible and the Narrative Construction of Biblical Israel

from Part II - Restoration Eschatology and the Construction of Biblical Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2021

Jason A. Staples
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University, Raleigh
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Summary

Too little scholarly attention has been paid to the paradox that those from the southern kingdom of Judah wrote, collected, and edited a foundational narrative not of Judah but of Israel, the ethnonym more closely associated with the northern kingdom even within the biblical narratives. This chapter argues that, rather than staking their claim to be the sole heirs to the heritage of the covenant with YHWH, the Judahite biblical editors constructed a biblical narrative that emphasizes that Judah is only one portion of a larger Israel that is presently—from the perspective of the editors and their implied audience—incomplete and awaiting reunion and restoration. By constructing an Israel of the past and rhetorically situating the reader in exile, the editors of the Primary History (Genesis–2 Kings) and 1–2 Chronicles establish a perspective of restoration eschatology in which an idealized biblical Israel (of course under the leadership of Judah) does not presently exist, having lost its status due to covenantal disobedience and disunity, but remains a social and theological aspiration.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Idea of Israel in Second Temple Judaism
A New Theory of People, Exile, and Israelite Identity
, pp. 87 - 120
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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