Keith w whitelam biography examples
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Keith Whitelam
The Politics of Israel's Past: The Bible, Archaeology and Nation-Building (edited by Emanuel Pfoh and Keith W. Whitelam; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, ).
by Emanuel Pfoh and Keith Whitelam
This collection of articles, written by biblical scholars, archaeologists, anthropologists and hi more This collection of articles, written by biblical scholars, archaeologists, anthropologists and historians, adresses topics like the appearance of Judaism and its relation to the production of biblical literature, the politics of archaeological practice in Israel, the role of archaeology in the production of nationalist narratives of the past, the relationship between genetic studies and Jewish nationalism, and the prospects for writing critical histories of ancient Palestine beyond biblical images and religious and political aspirations. Each of these articles illustrates the close relationship between the Bible, archaeology and processes of nation-building in the State of Israel. The Politics of Israel’s Past engages in the ways contemporary politics affects the knowledge of the past and how constructions of an ancient past legitimate modern political situations.
Contributions by Nadia Abu El-Haj, Ingrid Hjelm, Niels Peter Lemche, Firas Sawah, Thomas L. Thompson
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The Social Sphere of Scriptural Antiquity
The Civics of Israel&#;s Past: Say publicly Bible, Anthropology and Nation-Building
By Emanuel Pfoh, Keith W. Whitelam
Published: July
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Middle East Quarterly
Whitelam presents two theses: that ancient Palestinian history should be separate from Biblical studies; and that Western scholarship “invented” ancient Israel while silencing Palestinian history. The first thesis is viable, for the region extending some hundred miles east from the Mediterranean encompassed many peoples in ancient times, but Western scholarship emphasizes those peoples and texts connected to the development of Judaism and Christianity.
The second thesis, however, flounders badly. An ethnic, political, and religious group called “Israel” is a recognizable entity in various ancient documents, including the Hebrew Bible. Scholars debate when this entity came into existence, but to describe the idea of ancient Israel as a modern one is bizarre at best. Arguing that Palestinian history has been “silenced,” Whitelam chides modern scholars for referring to ancient inhabitants of Palestine as Canaanite and Amorite rather than Palestinian. Yet the former are appropriate designations given that they (unlike Palestinian) were used in the late Bronze and Iron Ages; Palestine first came into use in Roman times. Whitelam condemns any term that does not explicitly link ancient Canaanite-speakers with contemporary Arabic-speakers in the same