In his New York Times column on November 11, 2014, “Freud and the Middle East,” Tom Friedman observes, “Just as there is a little bit of West Bank ‘Jewish settler’ in almost every Israeli, there is a little bit of the caliphate dream in almost every Sunni [Muslim].” He concludes the column, “In sum, there are so many conflicting dreams and night-mares playing out among our Middle East allies in the war on ISIS that Freud would not have been able to keep them straight. If you listen closely, of those dreams, ours—‘pluralistic democracy’—is not high on the list. [I] am skeptical that our fractious allies, with all their different dreams, can agree on new power-sharing arrangements for Iraq or Syria, even if ISIS is defeated.”
Identity politics has a long history of conflict. For those “settlers,” whose identity gives group members a sense of entitlement—whatever affords group identity—conflicts with indigenous peoples are legendary.
Biblical accounts furnish ample evidence of such group identity and conflicts, as demonstrated in the articles in the current issue of BTB.
Pekka Pitkänen lays out a conflict scenario in his exposition, “Reading Genesis–Joshua as a Unified Document from an Early Date: A Settler Colonial Perspective,” expanding the biblical narrative from a Pentateuch to a Hexateuch to extend Israel's process of shaping group identity and realizing the settlers' dream. The story reflects a sociopolitical transformation of ancient Canaanite societies into Israelite, as an example of ancient settler colonialism. Pitkänen offers evidence for the canonical shaping in appendices that depict the chiastic structure of Genesis–Joshua, as well as the integration of its elements into the structure of the Pentateuch. The many conflict stories attest to a settler colonization scenario.
David J. Zucker and Moshe Reiss study a different kind of conflict in their exposition of reversed gender role models in the conflict between the forces of Israel and those of a Canaanite commander. In “Subverting Sexuality: Manly Women; Womanly Men in Judges 4–5,” Zucker and Reiss show how the depiction of Deborah and Jael in Judges 4 and 5 constitutes a stunning reversal of the general patriarchal and male-gender dominance. No other woman in the Bible carries the attributes of Judge, Prophet, and Warrior as does Deborah. Strong and resolute characters, Deborah and Jael out-perform Baraq and Sisera, who come off as “unmanly.” Potential victims end up as victors, a lesson in adaptability and resilience, and a challenge to patriarchal structures.
Philip F. Esler, in “Intergroup Conflict and Matthew 23: Toward Responsible Historical Interpretation of a Challenging Text,” uses social identity theory to engage social scientific perspectives on intergroup conflicts. Recognizing the implications in the long history of Jewish-Christian relations, he carefully addresses the contextual question of how to translate Ioudaioi in Matthew. This article is well suited for exploring the ways in which ancient texts that have had significant impact over time need to be addressed with critical historical responsibility as well as with suitable explanation for the present state of inter-religious awareness.
