Imagining the Other and Constructing Israelite Identity in the Early Second Temple Period

by Ehud Ben Zvi (Editor), Diana Vikander Edelman (Editor)

This volume sheds light on how particular constructions of the 'Other' contributed to an ongoing process of defining what 'Israel' or an 'Israelite' was, or was supposed to be in literature taken to be authoritative in the late Persian and Early Hellenistic periods. It asks, who is an insider and who an outsider? Are boundaries permeable? Are there different ideas expressed within individual books? What about constructions of the (partial) 'Other' from inside, e.g., women, people whose body did not fit social constructions of normalness? It includes chapters dealing with theoretical issues and case studies, and addresses similar issues from the perspective of groups in the late Second Temple period so as to shed light on processes of continuity and discontinuity on these matters. Preliminary forms of five of the contributions were presented in Thessaloniki in 2011 in the research programme, 'Production and Reception of Authoritative Books in the Persian and Hellenistic Period,' at the Annual Meeting of European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS).

360 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2014

Reviews

[Sanjuro · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Other" is a cultural and philosophical concept that fascinates me, as it is often subtle and implicit in cultures, but has a massive impact on the way that people treat and respond to one another. This volume contains 16 essays analyzing biblical and extra-biblical Second Temple texts for the purpose of gauging the ways that othering took place during that period, othering with religious and cultural implications, and analyzes the roles concepts such as ethnicity, disability, and national identity, among others. As with all such edited volumes, some essays were much more helpful than others, but on the whole many of the essays were intriguing and the exegetical quality was very good. An excellent contribution to the discussion of othering in Biblical Studies.