Biblical Archaeology and the Politics of Nation-Building

Abstract

Since the time of the British mandate, Zionist and, later, Israeli politics of nation-building has strongly influenced 'biblical archaeology' and has significantly undermined the integrity of Israeli scholarship. Critiques from Yael Zerubavel and Keith Whitelam to Nadia Abu El-Haj and Raz Kletter have repeatedly pointed out the consistent nationalistic distortions that have infected the field. The efforts of critical scholars to write a history of Palestine independent of biblical perspectives have corrected such distortions since the 1980s and have raised considerable doubt concerning the legitimacy of the Judeo-ethnocentrism which dominates nationalist Israeli claims on the heritage of ancient Palestine and the Bible.

Meeting a Learned Society: The Archaeology of ASOR as Reflected in its Annual Meeting, Boston 2017

“…The focus on the Iron Age period in the archaeology in Israel is not a new phenomenon. It relates to modern national feelings, since this period is viewed as 'our' period, of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, or the First Temple period (in past studies also called 'the Israelite period'; on archaeology and nationalism in Israel see Roth and Meskell 2002; Baram and Rowan 2004;Kletter 2006;Kohl et al 2007;Thompson 2009;Oestigaard 2013;Sherrard 2015).…”