Conceiving a Nation: The Development of Political Discourse in the Hebrew Bible (review)

As the title and subtitle of the present book indicate, this is a study about the nature of Israelite nationhood and on "the centrality of political discourse in the creation of national identity," as the author puts it in the Conclusion (p. 201). While this is the broad framework of this volume, its substance is made up of elaborate studies of various biblical heroes and heroines, including Joseph, Moses, Ruth, Jotham, Samson, Esther, each study done with careful consideration for relevant detail, each story analyzed ingeniously with countless references to commentaries and Midrashic literature, as well as modern interpretations of psychologists, anthropologists, and linguists. The numerous references are reflected in the Bibliography (pp. 203–222), counting about 450 items.

This work of Professor Mira Morgenstern may be read and evaluated from two distinct perspectives, even if these are linked in the intention and design of the author. One is the detailed analysis in each chapter which deals with one or more biblical figures. (For the above list is not complete: Miriam, Gideon, Naomi, Boaz, Mordecai, and others are also included.) Another perspective connects diverse stories and aims at supporting, not to say "proving," a general conclusion which claims its place in the discussion.

It is possible to agree with much in the detailed studies without accepting the general statements, and vice versa. Moreover, one can accept Morgenstern's analysis of one figure and disagree with her presentation of another. It is important in the context of a review to give justice to the author's ingenious, though complicated, analysis of the various narratives and their protagonists, or, for that matter, to present and justify the disagreement of the reviewer in some cases. The review will address these issues without necessarily dividing them in the aforesaid manner.

"The Bible structures its analysis of political discourse by focusing on a nation whose political development is atypical" (p. 5). It is also the strangeness of political protagonists that characterizes the Israelite foundation of national-political awareness, in contrast with the accepted notions of the nature of national identity. Thus, the story of Ruth questions the ethnic essence of nationality, the tale of Samson defies the cultural character of nationhood, and the book of Esther presents the Jews as people without a territorial base (p. 4).

The present reviewer has doubts about such crucial place of strangeness in political discourse at large, as well as in the specific case of Israelites or Jews and the examples adduced here. Let us deal with the latter.

The survival of Jewish nationhood on foreign territory is, of course, an unusual phenomenon, and has been elevated or downgraded to a proverbial status. Yet, the phenomenon of a nationhood without a territorial base is not at the root of Jewish national awareness, an awareness which solidified before Jewish dispersal and was strong enough to survive the ordeal of exile. Jewish nationalism does not owe anything to Esther—book or heroine. It is Esther who owes her national identity to Jewishness and to the enmity of her host country. This, of course, is largely—though not necessarily—the case of the Jewish condition in history. That this peculiarity may not be a guarantee of the survival of Jewish nationhood on any soil has been amply shown by the assimilation of Jews in diaspora, as the Persian names of Esther and Mordecai not so discreetly indicate. Indeed, the cultural identity of Jews has not always been secure on their territory either, as the Hellenistic manifestations of the Hasmonean kingdom show, or, for that matter, the linguistic and cultural fragility of contemporary Israel demonstrates

As to the difference of Samson, it has to be borne in mind that, being one of the "Judges" in the eponymous book, he could hardly be a "regular guy." The Judges (Shoftim) were not an institution, like the Kings, but ad-hoc military commanders emerging in times...