Reading the Bible with the Eyes of the Canaanites: Neo-Zionism, Political Theology and the Land Traditions of the Bible (1967 to Gaza 2009)
In modern times, a whole range of colonial enterprises have used the Bible. The book of Joshua and other biblical texts evoking the exploits of ancient Israelites have been deployed in support of secular Zionism and settler colonisation in Palestine. The mega narratives of the Bible, however, appeared to mandate the ethnic cleansing and even genocide of the indigenous population of Canaan. This article argues that, with the rise of messianic Zionism since 1967, a Jewish theology of zealotocracy, based on the land traditions of the Bible, has emerged in Israel – a political theology that demanded the destruction of the so-called modern Canaanites; since 1967 fundamentalist rabbis have routinely compared the Palestinian people to the ancient Canaanites, Philistines and Amalekites, whose annihilation or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was predestined by a divine design. This article focuses on the politics of reading the Bible by neo-Zionists and examines the theology of the messianic current which embraces the paradigm of Jews as a divinely ‘chosen people’ and sees the indigenous Palestinians as no more than illegitimate squatters, and a threat to the process of messianic redemption; their human and civil rights are no match for the biblically-ordained holy war of conquering and settling the ‘Promised Land’.
Ideology and the history of ancient Israel
An answer to the recent criticism of Ian Provan and James Barr of the position of the so-called ''revisionists'' among Old Testament scholars. Provan - as well as Barr - accuses the revisionists for being ''ideologists'', i.e., that ideology has governed their research. This is a false accusation. The revisionists originally shared the ideology of the scholarship of the modern age. Only at a later date they adopted, forced by their analyses, an ideological approach to the reading of text that seems more on-line with ideas that are said to be postmodern.
Beyond New Testament Theology: A Story and a Programme
This fascinating and comprehensive book, first published in 1990, is, as the original subtile put it, 'a story and a programme'. The story is that of the many attempts over the last two hundred years to write a theology of the New Testament, from the pioneering J. P. Gabler to the present day. Writing in Theology, Robert morgan describes it as 'surely the best available survey in any language and particularly useful for those less familiar with the German tradition'. However, the book contains more than a survey: the 'programme' maps out the way that New Testament theology should proceed in the future. The programme relates not only to subject-matter but also to audience, since in a secular society those who read the New Testament range far outside the confessions and churches. As might be expected, the reception for this radical thesis has ben a mixed one, but the importance of Professor Raisaenen's work has been strongly emphasized, not lesast by Professor Gerd Theissen in his A Theory of Primitive Christian Reigion. This new edition contains a survey of the debate over the last decade and also elaborates further on the programme for the future in the light of recent developments. Heikki Raisaenen is Professor of New Testament Exegesis at the University of Helsinki.