Unlocking potential with the best learning and research solutions

War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible

Author: Jacob L. Wright, Emory University, Atlanta

Date Published: July 2020
availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
format: Adobe eBook Reader
isbn: 9781108575898

Find out more about Cambridge eBooks

Rate & review

Adobe eBook Reader

Add to wishlist

Other available formats:

Looking for an inspection copy?

This title is not currently available for inspection. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an inspection copy. To register your interest please contact asiamktg@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.

Description

Contents

Resources

Courses

About the Authors

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.
- Demonstrates how the biblical authors worked in the framework of a common narrative to create a new political identity
- Includes inter-disciplinary and comparative perspectives, including 'war commemoration' and brings the biblical narratives into conversation with political theory and political theology
- Highlights distinctive features of the biblical corpus, and reflects on persisting concerns for political communities including kinship, marginalized others, volunteerism, and conflict resolution
Read more
Reviews & endorsements
'The book is a welcome follow-up to the author's previous volume (David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory) [Cambridge, 2014] … The highlight of the work, however, is its thoroughgoing interdisciplinary character. Wright has provided an exemplar of the interdisciplinary study that should mark today's engagements with biblical warfare texts. This interdisciplinarity includes engagement with political theory and philosophy, sociology, anthropology, classical Greek literature, and international law. Readers of this monograph will find both a compelling technical approach to specific biblical texts and an invitation to a broader social and cultural conversation much needed in our time.' Brad E. Kelle, Society Of Biblical Literature
'This monograph is impressively erudite as well as densely written, citing widely from a plethora of ancient and more recent sources. For all this, it is also readable and enjoyable.' Johanna Stiebert, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
See more reviews
Customer reviews

Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review

Log in to review

Review was not posted due to profanity
×

, create a review

(If you're not , sign out)

Please enter the right captcha value

Please enter a star rating.

Your review must be a minimum of 12 words.

How do you rate this item?

Reviews must contain at least 12 words about the product.

×

Product details
- Date Published: July 2020
- format: Adobe eBook Reader
- isbn: 9781108575898
- availability: This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
Part 1. Refugee Memories: Negotiating Relations and Borders to Neighboring States
1. Passages to Peace
2. Edom as Israel's Other
Part 2. Kinship and Commandment: The Transjordanian Tribes and the Conquest of Canaan
3. Mapping the Promised Land
4. The Nation's Transjordanian Vanguard
5. A Nation Beyond Its Borders
6. Kinship, Law, and Narrative
Part 3. Rahab: An Archetypal Outsider
7. Between Faith and Works
8. The Composition of the Rahab Story
9. Rahab's Courage and the Gibeonites' Cowardice
Part 4. Deborah: Mother of a Voluntary Nation
10. A Prophet and Her General
11. A Poetic War Monument
12. A National Anthem for the North
13. Women and War Commemoration
14. Jael's Identities.
Look Inside
Author
Jacob L. Wright, Emory University, Atlanta
Jacob L. Wright is a professor at Emory University in the Candler School of Theology. He writes on a wide array of topics, ranging from material culture to commensality and urbicide. His first book, Rebuilding Identity (De Gruyter, 2003), won the Templeton Prize, and his most recent book, David, King of Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2014), won the ASOR Nancy Lapp Popular Book Award. His free online course (The Bible's Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future) consistently ranks among the top online courses in the humanities.