The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History

ISBN-13: 9780415107594 / Angielski / Miękka / 1997 / 296 str.

Keith W. Whitelam

Opis

This study shows how the true history of ancient Palestine has been obscured by the search for Israel. The author demonstrates how ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state, influenced by the realization of the state of Israel in 1948. The text explores the theological and political assumptions which have shaped research into ancient Israel by Biblical scholars, and contributed to the network of scholarship which Said identified as Orientalist discourse. This study concentrates on two periods from the end of the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, a so-called period of the emergence of ancient Israel and the rise of an Israelite state under David, to show how classic treatments have invented Israel in the image of a modern European state. It explores the prospects for developing the study of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right, divorced from the history of the Bible. It argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this area, have contributed to dispossession both of a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past.

Recenzje

'Anyone who feels K's work 'can be safely ignored' will only show himself up as a fool.' - History Geography and Society

'An important contribution to the history of scholarship.' - Expository Times

'This is a brave, fascinating and important book ... constantly thought provoking and controversial.' - Sunday Times

'Keith Whitelam's work serves to remind us what a vital if fraught exercise it still is to engage explicitly with the unique cultural influence of the Old Testament on the contemporary world.' - The Friend

'It is a masterly, courageous work, the result of careful reading, focused reflection and the appropriate moral passion, which richly deserves wide exposure and will surely prompt siginificant discussion.' - Heythrop Journal

'Whitelam can (and will) be criticized for introducing politics into 'ancient Israel', he is merely exposing it - and the Palestinians are after all the major victims of a zionizing European and American biblical scholarship. This book should be in paperback, and compulsory reading.' - Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Spis treści

Introduction: The Silencing of Palestinian History, 1. Partial Texts and Fractured Histories, 2. Denying Space and Time to Palestinian History, 3. Inventing Ancient Israel, 4. The Creation of an Israelite State, 5. The Continuing Search, Reclaiming Palestinian History, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

O autorze

Keith W. Whitelam is Professor of Religious Studies and Head of Department at the University of Stirling. He is the co-author of The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (1987), and has produced a series of articles on ancient Israelite and Palestinian history.