War, Memory, and National Identity in the Hebrew Bible

Jacob L. Wright

doi:10.1017/9781108691512

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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.

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

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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.

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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,

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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.

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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

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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

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