Overview

Cognitive Perspectives on Israelite Identity breaks new ground in the study of ethnic identity in the ancient world through the articulation of an explicitly cognitive perspective. In presenting a view of ethnicity as an epistemological rather than an ontological entity, this work seeks to correct the pronounced tendency towards ‘analytical groupism' in the academic literature. Challenging what Pierre Bourdieu has called ‘our primary inclination to think the world in a substantialist manner,' this study seeks to break with the vernacular categories and ‘commonsense primordialisms' encoded within the Biblical texts, whilst at the same time accounting for their tenacious hold on our social and political imagination. It is the recognition of the performative and reifying potential of these categories of ethno-political practice that disqualifies their appropriation as categories of social analysis.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dr. Dermot Anthony Nestor
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   T.& T.Clark Ltd
Volume:   519
Dimensions:   Width: 15.50cm , Height: 2.50cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.585kg
ISBN:  

9780567012975

ISBN 10:   0567012972
Pages:   288
Publication Date:   10 June 2010
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One The Rise of the Concept of Race Social Evolution and Race Human Evolution and the Concept of Culture(s) Chapter Two Archaeology and Evolution Archaeology and the Question of National Identity: Gustav Kossinna Archaeology and Culture: V. Gordon Childe Archaeology and the Identity of Israel Chapter Three The Emergence of 'Ethnicity' Primordialism and Instrumentalism in the Study of Ethnicity Chapter Four Cognitive Perspectives on Ethnicity and Identity Ethnicity as Cognition: Pierre Bourdieu Chapter Five The Loss of Innocence New Archaeology and the Ethnic Interpretation of Style Style as Active Comunication The Archaeology of Practice Chapter Six Biblical Archaeology and La Longue Duree Archaeology and Israelite Identity Israel in the Merneptah Stele 'Israel' as an Essentialist Category of Social Cognition Chapter Seven Israelite Ethnicity and Biblical Archaeology Ethnic Sentiments in the Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible and the 'Creation' of Israelite Identity Chapter Eight Ideology, Doxa, and the Boundaries of Israelite Identity Common Sense as Social Power Conclusion Bibliography

Reviews

This is clearly an important text, shrewdly perceptive in content, informative in every detail, and offering a new perspective for sociological investigation of the biblical material that would be of interest to biblical scholars with an interest in ethnicity and Sitz im Leben. -- Reviews in Religion & Theology

Author Information

Dr. Nestor is Lecturer in Old Testament studies at Australian Catholic University in Sydney.

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