War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible

Jacob L. Wright

doi:10.1017/9781108691512

- You have access
- Open access
Cited by 5
Cited by
- 5
Crossref Citations

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Winkler, Mathias 2021. The ancestors’ masculinities in Genesis. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Vol. 46, Issue. 2, p. 269.

CrossRef

Google Scholar

Markl, Dominik 2022. Triumph and Trauma: Justifications of Mass Violence in Deuteronomistic Historiography. Open Theology, Vol. 8, Issue. 1, p. 412.

CrossRef

Google Scholar

Gonzaga, Waldecir and Machado Vianna Torres, Marcela 2022. Rahab, la ramera: mujer de fe (Heb 11,31) y de buenas obras (Sant 2,24-25). Revista Yachay, Vol. 39, Issue. 76, p. 161.

CrossRef

Google Scholar

Esterhuizen, Elizabeth (Liza) and Groenewald, Alphonso 2024. Unveiling the depths of trauma and the profound impact of rape and shaming on the Babylonian women in Isaiah 13:16 – A trauma and resilience reading of the violent narrative in Isaiah 13:16. Pharos Journal of Theology,

CrossRef

Google Scholar

Toczyski, Andrzej 2024. Identity and Otherness in the Rahab Story. Analysis of the Rahab Speech (Josh 2:9–11). The Biblical Annals, Vol. 14, Issue. 4, p. 557.

CrossRef

Google Scholar

Jacob L. Wright, Emory University, Atlanta

Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:: July 2020
Print publication year:: 2020
Online ISBN:: 9781108691512
DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108691512
Creative Commons:: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

Subjects:: Political Theory, Biblical Studies - Old Testament, Hebrew Bible, Religion, Politics and International Relations

Information

Contents

Metrics

The Hebrew Bible is permeated with depictions of military conflicts that have profoundly shaped the way many think about war. Why does war occupy so much space in the Bible? In this book, Jacob Wright offers a fresh and fascinating response to this question: War pervades the Bible not because ancient Israel was governed by religious factors (such as 'holy war') or because this people, along with its neighbors in the ancient Near East, was especially bellicose. The reason is rather that the Bible is fundamentally a project of constructing a new national identity for Israel, one that can both transcend deep divisions within the population and withstand military conquest by imperial armies. Drawing on the intriguing interdisciplinary research on war commemoration, Wright shows how biblical authors, like the architects of national identities from more recent times, constructed a new and influential notion of peoplehood in direct relation to memories of war, both real and imagined. This book is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

‘The book is a welcome follow-up to the author’s previous volume (David, King of Israel, and Caleb in Biblical Memory) [Cambridge, 2014] … The highlight of the work, however, is its thoroughgoing interdisciplinary character. Wright has provided an exemplar of the interdisciplinary study that should mark today’s engagements with biblical warfare texts. This interdisciplinarity includes engagement with political theory and philosophy, sociology, anthropology, classical Greek literature, and international law. Readers of this monograph will find both a compelling technical approach to specific biblical texts and an invitation to a broader social and cultural conversation much needed in our time.’

Brad E. Kelle Source: Society Of Biblical Literature

‘This monograph is impressively erudite as well as densely written, citing widely from a plethora of ancient and more recent sources. For all this, it is also readable and enjoyable.’

Johanna Stiebert Source: Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services