Chosen?

Reading the Bible Amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Walter Brueggemann

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781611646122
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

"The conflict is only 'seemingly' beyond solution, because all historical-political problems have solutions, if there is enough courage, honesty, and steadfastness.

In Chosen?, Walter Brueggemann explores the situation in modern-day Israel that raises questions for many Christians who are easily confused when reading biblical accounts of God's saving actions with the Israelites. Are modern Israeli citizens the descendants of the Israelites in the Bible whom God called chosen? Was the promise of land to Moses permanent and irrevocable? What about others living in the promised land? How should we read the Bible in light of the modern situation? Who are the Zionists, and what do they say?

In four chapters, Brueggemann addresses the main questions people have with regards to what the Bible has to say about this ongoing issue. A question-and-answer section with Walter Brueggemann, a glossary of terms, study guide, and guidelines for respectful dialogue are also included. The reader will get answers to their key questions about how to understand God's promises to the biblical people often called Israel and the conflict between Israel and Palestine today.

Chapter 1

READING THE BIBLE AMID THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT

THE ONGOING CONFLICT BETWEEN THE STATE OF ISRAEL and the Palestinian people is intense and complex, and it offers no easy or obvious solution. This chapter considers how to read the Bible responsibly in the midst of that conflict and consider what, if any, guidance may be received from it.

Reading the Bible with reference to any contemporary issue is at best tricky and hazardous, and any conclusion drawn from it is not likely to be persuasive to all parties in the dispute. People of faith can read the Bible so that almost any perspective on a current issue will find some support in the Bible. That rich and multivoiced offering in the Bible is what makes appeals to it so tempting—and yet so tricky and hazardous, because much of our reading of the Bible turns out to be an echo of what we thought anyway.

THE ISSUE OF LAND

The dispute between Palestinians and Israelis is elementally about land and secondarily about security and human rights. Various appeals are made to the Bible, especially concerning the disputed land. The appeal of the contemporary state of Israel to the Bible concerning the land is direct and simple. It is that the land of promise was given initially and unconditionally to Israel and thus to the ongoing community of Jews. It is a promise made to Abraham, reiterated to succeeding generations in the ancestral narratives of Genesis and then to the generation of the exodus.

A very different understanding of the land is offered in the covenant tradition of Deuteronomy and the prophets, wherein the land is held conditionally, depending upon obedience to the Torah. That tradition in Deuteronomy, along with the prophetic tradition, asserts that the land is losable. It is possible to conclude that the land is given unconditionally but is held conditionally.

Multiple Traditions in One Bible

Biblical scholars have identified a number of often competing traditions in the Hebrew Scriptures, or Old Testament. Not only were many books written by various authors, but many books also have multiple authors from multiple generations who edited previous writings. Part of the task of faithful interpretation is to acknowledge the variety of often competing positions found in the same Bible we say is the Word of the Lord.

The reality of history is that the land was indeed losable, as the city of Jerusalem was destroyed in the sixth century BCE and the monarchal state of Judah under the Davidic dynasty lost its political identity. In the ongoing tradition after the deportation (exile) of the Jerusalem leaders, there was a great and inevitable interpretive dispute about the reasons why the land had been lost and the ways in which it might be returned and restored. Most likely, the great tradition of land promise and land reception was given final biblical form during this critical period. That final form of the promise took a long look back in history, but it was heavily influenced by the crisis of exile and sought to give legitimacy and assurance in the moment of restoration. The land promise as we have it is in some large part the accomplishment of fifth-century traditionists, an accomplishment that became the bedrock conviction for the Judaism that followed.

EZRA, THE EXCLUSIONIST

The reformulation of the tradition in the fifth century and the evocation of Judaism as heir to ancient Israel were accomplished under the leadership of Ezra the scribe. Ezra is remembered in Jewish tradition as second only to Moses as a religious leader. Ezra referred to the community as “the holy seed” (9:2). That phrase intends a biological identity, so Joseph Blenkinsopp can translate it as “holy race.” Ezra’s governance, moreover, led to the expulsion of foreign wives who had been acquired during the time of deportation (Ezra 9:1–4; Neh. 13:1–3, 23–30). The exclusion was in order to guarantee the purity of the land and of Israelite society.

Sorting Out Some Names and Dates

The term Israel came to be used in a variety of ways over the course of time. Israelites is the name given to all the descendants of Jacob, who was also called Israel (Gen. 35:10). Jacob, or Israel, had twelve sons, the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel. One of these sons was Judah. Things became confusing hundreds of years later when, two generations after King David’s reign, the kingdom of Israel split into two nations. The northern kingdom continued to call itself Israel, and the southern kingdom took the name of its largest tribe, Judah.

After the northern kingdom was destroyed by Assyria in the eighth century BCE, Israel once again became available as a name for all the descendants of Jacob, including the Judeans. At this point, the names became somewhat interchangeable. Though the political name of the nation that was left remained Judah (and later Judea), and though the terms Judaism, Jew, and Jewish derive from this name, Israel continued to be used side by side with these terms.

Three other names are easier to distinguish. Jerusalem is the city in Judah that King David adopted as his capital. Zion is another name for Jerusalem. Canaan identifies the physical land that the Israelites occupied, because it was originally inhabited by Canaanites.

Key Dates

1000 BCE	King David’s reign
922 BCE	Israel divides into north (Israel) and south (Judah, which includes Jerusalem) after Solomon dies.
722 BCE	The Assyrians destroy and annex the north.
587 BCE	The Babylonians destroy the south and exile many leaders.
587–538 BCE	The Exile in Babylon (see glossary)
539 BCE	The Persians (now Iran) under King Cyrus conquer Babylon and then allow the exiles to return and rebuild the temple.

BIBLICAL TENSION BETWEEN EXCLUSION AND WELCOME

The biological dimension of identity that necessarily concerned purity and the expulsion of outsiders created an ongoing ambiguity in Jewish identity, as noted by Blenkinsopp:

The factor of biological descent was certainly important and continues to be so, as is clear from the juridical definition of Jewish identity in the State of Israel today. What this means is that unlike Christianity, Judaism has continued to think of itself in terms of peoplehood. But it will be clear . . . that the primary concern is with the religious identity of the community, a concern which continues to be paramount throughout the Second Temple period¹

That ambiguity about outsiders runs through Judaism, as it does in Christian faith in a somewhat different expression.

We should not, however, miss the emphasis on peoplehood that results, in one dimension of Judaism, as a rather hard-nosed conviction about “one people in one land” to the exclusion of others. Thus, the exclusion of the foreign women becomes something of an epitome or metaphor for the maintenance of purity that led as well to the purity of the land, to the exclusion of all others from the land.

Judaism also had and continues to have another interpretive trajectory that makes welcome room for the other. In the postexilic period, such an openness is shown in the story of Jonah, wherein God shows mercy toward Nineveh by sending Jonah to this perceived enemy of ancient Israel; in the narrative of Ruth, which explains that David has a Moabite (non-Jewish) mother, thus in violation of “the holy seed”; and in Isaiah 56, part of which concerns the welcome of foreigners and eunuchs (two populations sure to jeopardize purity) and includes God’s promise “that my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (v. 7).

In the current state of Israel with its Zionist policies, the exclusion of the other (now the Palestinians) is a dominant motif. And while the state of Israel continues to “negotiate” with the Palestinians, the dominant Zionist appeal to land promises continues to hold intransigently to the exclusionary claim that all the land belongs to Israel and the unacceptable other must be excluded, either by law or by coercive violence.

The Bible is ambiguous about “the other.” Some books and passages welcome the other; some reject the other. When this dialectic is brought to the matter of the land, it becomes an issue either of making room for the other in the land or of excluding the other from that land. Both parties can appeal to the Bible and find support for their interpretation.

MODERN TENSIONS: SAME OLD SAME OLD

The issue of Bible and land is whether to read with a welcome to the other or with an exclusion of the other. Welcome to the other appears to be a romantic dream in the world of real politics, and certainly current Israeli policy would find such openness to the Palestinians to be absurd. But if welcome to the other is considered romanticism, so ultimate exclusion of the other is a suicidal policy, because the other will not go away and cannot simply be wished away or forced away. As a result, the question of the other becomes the interpretive key to how to read the Bible. The other can be perceived, as in Zionist perspective, as a huge threat to the security of the state and the well-being of the holy seed. Conversely, the other can be perceived as a neighbor with whom to work at shalom.

The question of the other becomes the interpretive key to how to read the Bible. . . . We ought rightly to be skeptical and suspicious of any reading of the Bible that excludes the other, because it is likely to be informed by vested interest, fears, and hopes that serve self-protection and end in suicidal self-destruction.

The issue of exclus...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Reading The Bible amid the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
• 2. God’s Chosen People: Claim and Problem
• 3. Holy Land?
• 4. Zionism and Israel
• Q&A with Walter Brueggemann
• Glossary
• Study Guide
• Additional Questions—Based on “Q&A with Walter Brueggemann”
• Notes