Biblical Figures in Israel's Colonial Political Theology

ISBN-13: 9783031038242 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023

Silvana Rabinovich

Opis

This book reveals and counteracts the misuse of biblical texts and figures in political theology, in an attempt to decolonialize the reading of the Old Testament. In the framework of Critical Theory, the book questions readings that inform the State of Israel's military apparatus. It embraces Martin Buber’s pacifist vision and Edward Said’s perspective on Orientalism, influenced by critical authors such as Amnon Raz Krakotzkin, Ilan Pappé, Shlomo Sand, Idith Zertal, and Enrique Dussel’s.

Spis treści

Preface: Obsolescence vow 

Prologue by Enrique Dussel 

Introduction

About this book’s title

Declared as a Manifesto

Read Biblically

Thinking Genealogically

Chapter 1 - The Language: A Reservoir for Complicity

Language and War

Shem’s Languages

Translation Crossovers: Languages Promises

Chapter 2: Dangerous Brotherhoods: Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph

and His Brothers

… That woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son,

Isaac… (Genesis 21:10 New International Version)

…He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has taken away my

blessing… (Genesis 27:36 English Standard

Version)

... Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon

him; for he is our brother and our flesh. (Genesis 37:27 - KJB)

The Brother, Will He Always Be the Enemy?

Chapter 3 - Committing Suicide with the Enemy: the Specter of Samson

Chapter 4 - Victims and Victimizers 1: The Bible and the Shoah

Victims and Sacrifices

Victims and/or Victimizers

Take now thy son, (...) and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him

there for a burnt offering

Chapter 5 - Victims and Victimizers 2: Amalek, the Canaanites and the Nakbah

A Land Without a People?

Thou shalt not forget to erase its remembrance: the specter of Amalek

Appendix: Omnipotent-Impotent: The Exiled as a Threat (Biblical

snapshots)

Chapter 6 - Organizing Pessimism (in conclusion)

The Entrapped Peace: Ethics and Politics

The Logic of the Same and Identity: Nation and Death

The Spectral ethics of the Other: Politics of Otherness in the Mirror of

Language

Epilogue (2019). Arendt with Illich: Corruptio optimi quae est pessima

Bibliography

O autorze

Silvana Rabinovich is a Full Professor at the Philological Research Institute, National Autonomous University of Mexico.