Biblical literature throughout portrays Israel as arriving from the outside to their land, from Mesopotamia (Ur or Haran) or from Egypt, to a land settled by Canaanite peoples. This seminar presents the Israelite conception of national identity as being foreign to its cultural surroundings. The methodology is interdisciplinary: National conceptions of identity in the Hebrew Bible are discussed from the perspectives of social and psychological categories of group-identity definitions, where clear lines of hierarchy and stereotype are drawn, such that create conceptions of exclusivity and “otherness.” These constructions build the legitimacy of one group and the de-legitimacy of the other.
We will discuss four circles of national-group definitions: (1) Between Israel, the Canaanites and the Arameans in the forefathers stories (chapters from Genesis and Deut 26:5–10); the demand to separate from the seven Canaanite peoples in legal codices in the Pentateuch (Exodus 23, 34; Leviticus 18, 20; Deuteronomy 7). We will then look at the ways this separation is transformed to serve internal struggles within Israel: (2) Between Judah and Israel (2Kings 17); (3) Between the Judean exiles and those who remained in Ezekiel and in Ezra-Nehemiah (Ezekiel 16 and 20; Ezra 9–10; Nehmeiah 13); (4) Between Israel and the Samaritans (2Kings 17:24–41; Ezra 4:1–4).