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Israelites and Canaanites, Christians and Jews: Studies in Self‐Definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Paul Joyce
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My concern is with the phenomenon of self-definition, and particularly with the self-definition of one group over against another group. I shall consider two test-cases, one ancient and the other modem, the selfdefinition of Ancient Israel in relation to the Canaanites as evidenced in the Hebrew Bible, and the self-definition of Christians in relation to Jews in the Christian experience of reading the Hebrew Bible as Old Testament.’

Self and Other in Ancient Israel

I begin with the distinction between Israel and Canaan as presented in the Bible. This case illustrates how complex can be the mixture of reality and fantasy in the self-definition of a nation. Some words from the book of Deuteronomy:

‘You shall surely destroy all the places where the nations whom you shall dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree; you shall tear down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and bum their Asherim with fire; you shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy their name out of that place.’ (Deut. 12.2-3)

Israel presented herself as being distinctive, a people set apart. This emphasis marks the biblical story from Genesis 12 onwards; in the call of Abram, Israel is effectively called to be a people, T will make of you a great nation’ (Gen. 12.2). The story of Jacob and Esau is all about Israelite identity over against others. Jacob represents Israel; through his craftiness, he triumphs over Esau, who represents the enemy Edom (See especially Genesis 27).

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 75 , Issue 878 , January 1994 , pp. 31 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 My discussion of self-definition will be seen to draw upon a number of influences, including psychological language of projection and denial, Emmanuel Levinas’ philosophy of alterity, and the discussion of the ‘parting of the ways’ between Judaism and Christianity by Jacob Neusner and others.

2 G.E. Mendenhall, ‘The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine’, The Biblical Archaeologist 25 ( 1962), 66–87; reprinted in The Biblical Archaeologist Reader 3 (1970), 100–120.

3 N.K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 1979/London: SCM Press, 1980).

4 Whilst a strong tendency to dichotomy in self-definition does tend to characterize much of the Hebrew Bible, this is, of course, not the whole story. There are, even within what we might call the mainstream of scripture, more universalist perspectives (cf. Ruth, Jonah, Isaiah 40-55), and indeed we should not ignore those voices which speak of a unified and harmonious vision of nature and of the nations, as persuasively presented by Robert Murray in his important book The Cosmic Covenant (London: Sheed and Ward, 1992); cf. ‘The Relationship of Creatures within the Cosmic Covenant’, The Month Second New Series Vol. 23, No. 11 (November 1990), 425–432.

5 For a lively discussion of the use of the terms ‘Old Testament’ and ‘Hebrew Bible’, see the recent articles by John Sawyer and Walter Moberly in the journal Theology : J.F.A. Sawyer, ‘Combating Prejudices about the Bible and Judaism’ (July/August 1991), 269–278; R.W.L. Moberly, ‘“Old Testament” and “New Testament”: The Propriety of the Terms for Christian Theology’ (January/February 1992), 26–32.

6 On this, see Deborah Sawyer’s article in this same issue of New Blackfriars.

7 L. Grollenburg, Unexpected Messiah or How the Bible Can be Misleading (London: SCM Press, 1988),127-167.

8 For example, H. Maccoby, Judas Iscariot and the Myth of Jewish Evil (London: Peter Halban, 1992).

9 For example, R.R. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: the Theological Roots of Antisemitism (New York: Seabury, 1974).

10 For an accessible and useful collection, see Sean Hand (ed.), A Levinas Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); see also Gerard Loughlin’s article in this same issue of New Blackfriars.

11 Serious grappling with such questions will have profound implications. There are, of course, many ways of responding to such a challenge. For one brief attempt, see my ‘A Tale of Two Sisters: Judaism and Christianity’, Theology Vol. 96, No. 773 (September/October 1993), 384-390.

12 J. Lipner, ‘Seeking Others in their Otherness’, New Blackfriars Vol. 74, No. 869 (March 1993), 152-165. (It should be noted that Lipner here takes a rather less sympathetic view of the contribution of George Lindbeck than I do in the article mentioned in the previous note.)

13 M. Barnes, ‘Evangelisation and the other: response and responsibility’, The Month Second New Series, Vol. 25, No. 12 (December 1992), 479–484.