871 Canaanite Woman 872 a Jewish people. In “Canaanite” historiography, the tween them and to all things Jewish. Thus it re- Jews were/are a confessional faith community that solved the tension by privileging the spatial and re- had developed in the Babylonian exile and whose gional nature of Israeli nationhood of the present mode of existence was/is intrinsically extraterrito- over its entanglements in the temporal and its his- rial. In place of a Jewish state of , the end re- torical ties to the Jewish past and to the Diaspora. sult of which would inevitably be a ghetto-like Jew- This had important cultural consequences. In the ish , “Canaanism” saw the birth of a early years of Israeli statehood, “Canaanism” cata- secular new Hebrew , which it envisioned as lyzed the development of a local and regional style the first stage in the evolution of an emerging geo- in Israeli art and, in part, the turn away from the political region it called erets ha-qedem (the land of rabbinic and toward the biblical. David Ben-Gurion the East), erets ha-Perat (the land of the Euphrates), personifies this shift. A Zionist to the core, he be- or merhøav ha-shemi (the Semitic region). came a vocal proponent of the HB as the ground of “Canaanism” thus reads the Bible as the literary the new state’s historical consciousness. expression of the new myth that the Israelite el- When used pejoratively today, “Canaanism” is ement of the polytheistic Hebrews exiled in Baby- an epithet applied to any kind of ultra-secular, anti- lon propounded about their origins as they were religious thinking or value-system that affirms or transformed under the influence of Ezra’s mono- wants to foster Israel’s identity as a secular nation- theism into Jews. Their “Return to ” was man- state over its mode of existence as a Jewish state. dated on the basis of the reinterpretation of earlier When taken seriously “Canaanism” can be seen to material into stories about patriarchs, an exodus prefigure the post-Zionist thinking of the 1990s. from Egypt, and a covenant with God. Even while he was still alive, some of Ratosh’s fol- “Canaanism” descends from a current in late lowers abandoned their mentor’s anti-Arab position Haskalah fin de siècle thinking that was in open re- and articulated the idea of a United States of the bellion against the Jewish past and Jewish religion. Middle East. Today this notion resonates among It builds on the question M. Y. Berdichevsky fa- advocates of a secular, democratic state between the mously put to his contemporaries, “are we the last Mediterranean and the Jordan, a pluralistic non- of the Jews or the first of a new nation?” (Shinui Jewish polity with a written and strict arakhin [Transvaluation of Values], 1899) and on separation of religion from state. the sensibility in many of the works of Tchernihow- Bibliography: ■ Diamond, J. S., Homeland or Holy Land? The sky, Shneour, Frischmann, and Brenner. More pre- “Canaanite” Critique of Israel (Bloomington, Ind./Indianapo- cisely, “Canaanism” represents an appropriation of lis, Ind. 1986). ■ Gertz, N./R. Weissbrod, The Canaanite Col- 19th- and early 20th-century critical biblical schol- lective, 2 vols. (Tel Aviv/Ramat Aviv 1986–87). [Heb.] ■ Rat- arship for political ends. These ends were rooted in osh, Y., The First Days (Tel Aviv 1982). [Heb.] ■ Shavit, Y., the maximalist wing of the Zev Jabotinsky’s Revi- From Hebrew to Canaanite (Jerusalem/Tel Aviv 1984). [Heb.] ■ sionist party, but its idea of fulfilling the Zionist Shavit, Y., The New Hebrew Nation: A Study in Heresy and Fantasy (London 1987). project by re-creating the Davidic empire from the James S. Diamond Nile to the Euphrates was transmuted by Ratosh and his followers into a totalist, non-Zionist vision of a secular Hebrew Semitic region. Canaanite Woman Though there was a brief attempt to work for this dream through some cultural activities that it /Syrophoenician Woman was hoped would transform the consciousness of the Israeli body politic, it was ineffectual. Ratosh steadfastly refused to enter the Zionist Israeli politi- Canaanites cal arena, and the movement petered out. The uto- I. Introduction pian nature of the “Canaanite” dream and its disre- II. Archaeology gard for the realities of history and the abiding III. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old power of the inherited traditions of both Testament and Islam were all noted early on and, for those IV. Judaism V. Film reasons, it has been widely dismissed as an absurd phantasm. But its critique of the dialectics of Zion- ist ideology, which never could, nor ever even I. Introduction sought, to resolve the tension between the values Who was a Canaanite? The answer most often in- and usages of the Jewish past and those of the post- voked is one intimately attached to the biblical im- Enlightenment present, is of continued relevance in age of the Canaanites or the land of Canaan, where the day-to-day life of the state of Israel. Whereas the two terms are mentioned 160 or so times. In the chose to accept and live with the conflict- narrative portions of the HB/OT, especially those ing claims of secular nationhood and Orthodox contained in the books of Joshua and Judges, the Jewish religion, “Canaanism” severed the nexus be- “biblical” Canaanites comprise the ancient, indige-

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 4 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2012 Download Date | 12/11/18 10:21 PM 873 Canaanites 874 nous peoples living in the land of Canaan (the prox- what over those several hundred years. The Canaan- imate combined geographic equivalent of modern ite urban centers mentioned in the Amarna tablets Lebanon, Jordan, and -Israel, along with were characterized by the Canaanite scribes respon- the southernmost reaches of Syria). According to sible for the correspondence preserved at Tell the HB/OT, the Israelites clashed with these Ca- Amarna, Egypt, as perpetually in conflict with one naanites over land claims after crossing into the another and therefore in need of the Egyptian phar- land of Canaan, following Israel’s exodus from aoh’s intervention. The Egyptian king apparently Egypt a generation earlier. Yet, the answer to our responded by sending his armies to the region and question neither begins nor ends here. The origin building fortresses and official Egyptian residencies of the terms Canaan and Canaanite has eluded ex- throughout Canaan. perts. The lexical base for these terms was used in The ever-expanding archaeological data inform antiquity to refer to either a red, blue, or purple dye us in two major ways about Canaanite culture; it that the coastal Canaanites produced, which some was diverse in its social constructions, as is hinted have proposed as the origin behind the geographic at in the diversity of burial customs, the architec- name of Canaan. It is more probable that the dyes ture of palaces, temples, and domestic buildings, were named after those who produced them. In a and the pottery, yet it shared an overall socioeco- few instances, the HB/OT describes the Canaanites nomic system (at least beginning with the 2nd mil- as merchants, but rather than being the origin of lennium BCE) of city-state vs. rural village. Canaan- the term, it more likely comprises a secondary de- ites also shared a common language and various velopment reflecting the reputation of the Canaan- other cultural elements. In sum, Canaanite society ites as seafaring entrepreneurs. Another view un- at this time formed what modern historians can derstands the term Canaan as a derivative of a base identify only vaguely as a common social boundary word meaning “to bend, bow, be subdued,” but east and west of the Jordan. On another front, how- this too offers little in the way of clarifying the ori- ever, both the Canaanite ceramic assemblages and gins of the term. Historians likewise take different the Egyptian texts of the so-called Amarna period positions when it comes to the socio-historical sig- from the Late Bronze Age suggest that southern Ca- nificance they attach to the terms Canaanite and Ca- naan was not only physically distinct from northern naan. Some would hold the view that these terms Canaan via the geographic disjunction provided by refer to a people’s ethnic affiliations. Others em- the Jezreel valley, but perhaps also culturally brace the notion that these terms evoke a generally unique, with the latter having greater affiliations identifiable geographic region inhabited by a wide with Syria and the Aegean, and the former with variety of peoples; still others recognize some com- Egypt and perhaps Arabia. bination of both. Much of the seeming cultural homogeneity was the result of Egyptian imperial and/or colonial rule II. Archaeology of Canaan in the Late Bronze age. Egypt controlled Archaeologists have identified a major cultural the international trade in the region and also cen- break at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age (= tralized ceramic production in workshops. These MB; or the beginning of 2nd millennium BCE) in and other related factors resulted in a rather uni- the greater region of Syria-Palestine. The ties this form material culture. This unity in turn overshad- cultural break share in common with MB I culture owed somewhat those distinctive ethnic elements in the interior of Syria have suggested to some that attested in the mortuary and cultic remains. With Canaanite culture has its origins in Syria. There was the demise of Egyptian control over Canaan in the a significant development at about this time as re- 12th century BCE, Egypt’s withdrawal from such gards the various extant modes of human commu- sites as Beth-shean, Deir el-Balah, and others, and nalism, which ranged from pastoralism to large, the ensuing crisis or transition that is widely recog- fortified urban centers that were accompanied by nized to have taken place at this time, the various surrounding villages and towns, stratified social people groups that made up what, from the “top classification, and a boom in international trade. down,” appeared to be a homogeneous Bronze Age The transition from MB to the Late Bronze Age Canaanite society emerged in the aftermath of (= LB) in Canaan included some limited destruction Egyptian withdrawal by the beginning of the Iron in the hill country, but for the most part, sites were Age asserting their distinctive traits more explicitly. resettled during the so-called Amarna Age (14th The lessening of Egypt’s hold on Canaan left the cent. BCE) at a more reduced size and number, with region open to the emergence of several independ- most centers located on the coast, in the valleys, and ent polities in the Early Iron Age, some of which, along major trade routes. International trade, now like earliest Israel mentioned in the Merenptah focused on Cyprus and the Aegean, continued to stele (about 1205 BCE), undoubtedly comprised a the end of the LB. For most of the LB period, Ca- mixture of Canaanite tribal and kin-based groups naan was dominated by Egypt, though the latter’s made up of nomads, farmers, Apiru and Shashu, influence and presence in Canaan vacillated some- who constructed for themselves new ethnic identi-

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 4 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2012 Download Date | 12/11/18 10:21 PM 875 Canaanites 876 ties including, at least in the one case we can trace Other contemporary sites have yielded written (Israel), an epic narrative (now refracted, in part or documentation of Canaan as a geographic region, in whole, through the HB/OT), as well as a new, such as the texts from the ancient Syrian sites of shared religion (that of Yahwism). These various Alalakh and Ugarit. One text from Ugarit men- people groups included not only the Israelites, but tions, in the context of a judicial decree, both “the also the Moabites, the (so-called) Phoenicians of the sons of Canaan” and “the sons of Ugarit.” This may coastal cities, the Ammonites, Judahites, and Edom- be understood to be evidence that Ugarit (and most ites. Philistia, with its marked Aegean orientation, of Syria) was not considered at that time as part of comprises the exception to the otherwise Canaan- Canaan or, more importantly for many, as Canaan- ite-dominated Iron Age polities of the region. ite culture, though this may be pushing the limited evidence here too far since Ugarit preserves a lan- Bibliography: ■ Killebrew, A. E., Biblical Peoples and Ethnic- ity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, guage and religious tradition closely related to and Early Israel (Leiden/Boston, Mass. 2005). those of the Canaanites. 2. The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In the III. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/ HB/OT, the term “Canaan” is used frequently as a Old Testament geographical term, while in other contexts the term 1. The Ancient Near East. Whether or not the “Canaanite” verges on a general ethnic label that term “Canaan” or “Canaanites” appear in the 3rd runs contrary to still other biblical references that millennium BCE texts from ancient Ebla in Syria list the Canaanites as just one among several differ- remains a point of some debate. The term “Canaan- ent groups inhabiting that same general territory. ite” is unequivocally attested for the first time in a Both the geographical and generalized ethnic over- text from the city of Mari in Syria from the 18th tones of the terms have their broad parallels in an- century BCE. In a letter written to a sovereign by cient Near Eastern traditions outside the biblical one of his subjects, a complaint is filed against text. It has also been suggested that if at the end of “thieves and Canaanites,” but the text affords little the Late Bronze Age, numerous peoples migrated else in the way of helpful details. to the southern Levant, then the preservation of the It is not until the 15th century BCE, and in this term “Canaanite” alongside the various other peo- instance from Egypt, that the next occurrence of the ple groups in the biblical lists, such as the Hittites, term can be identified. The Canaanites apparently Hivites, Gergashites, and Jebusites, and perhaps the had a long, but rather seesaw, relationship with the Horites and Perizzites, might preserve an echo of ancient Egyptians. On more than one occasion, the migratory peoples from areas farther north and  Egyptians dominated the land of Canaan militarily south (so Na aman). In Deuteronomistic texts, the and economically, and perhaps culturally. Pharaoh term “Canaanite” is used ultimately in an ideologi- Amenhotep II proclaims on his victory stele the cap- cal way in order to designate the autochthonous ture and deportation of Canaanites. The discovery people with whom the Israelites shall not get into in Egypt at the end of the 19th century of more any relationship. The biblical opposition between than 380 texts from Tell Amarna composed on clay Israelites and Canaanites is therefore an attempt of tablets and written in Akkadian, one of the lan- constructing a new collective identity. guages of Mesopotamia, has provided an unprece- In the final analysis, both the terms “Canaan” dented window through which to view the interna- and “Canaanite” undoubtedly conveyed different tional relations involving Egypt and the land of meanings in ancient times. It is our limited knowl- Canaan in the mid-14th century BCE. The vast ma- edge that impedes our access to their full range of jority of the Tell Amarna tablets record the commu- possibilities. nications sent to the Egyptian Pharaoh from vari- Bibliography: ■ Killebrew, A. E., Biblical Peoples and Ethnic- ous subjugated peoples. In these letters there are ity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, references to the “land of Canaan,” the “province of and Early Israel (Leiden/Boston, Mass. 2005). ■ Lemche, N. Canaan,” the “cities of Canaan,” the “kings of the P., The Canaanites and Their Land (JSOT Supplement Series 110; Sheffield 1991). ■ Liverani, M., Israel’s History and the land of Canaan,” a “man of Canaan,” and “Canaan- (London 2005). ■ Miller, J., “Ethnicity and ites.” In another Egyptian text, Pharaoh Mer- the Hebrew Bible: Problems and Prospects,” Currents in Bibli- enptah’s victory stele (about 1205 BCE), Canaan is cal Research 6 (2008) 170–213. ■ Naaman, N., “The Ca- mentioned as an area that was devastated during naanites and Their Land: A Rejoinder,” UF 26 (1994) 397– the king’s campaign in the late 13th century BCE. 418. ■ Sparks, K., Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel The earliest attested mention of Israel outside the (Winona Lake, Ind. 1998). HB/OT is also preserved in this text, and, like Ca- Brian B. Schmidt naan, Israel is described as overwhelmed. In other words, it seems that there was a geographic area in IV. Judaism the south of the Levant that was referred to as Ca- The rabbis explain the command to expel or de- naan at the end of the Late Bronze Age (as well as a stroy the Canaanites (Deut 7 : 1–6 and parallels) and people or a group named Israel). biblical warnings against following their practices

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(Deut 12 : 29–31) by saying that they “were steeped thier than the white Western actors who are typi- in idolatry more than all the other of the cally cast as Israelites. world” (SifDev 60); their deeds were more corrupt For example, in The Bible: In the Beginning (dir. than those of all other nations (Sifra Ahøarei Mot Par. John Huston, 1966) Abram warns Lot against set- 9; ibid. Pereq 13; see already Jub. 25 : 1: “All their tling near the wicked sinners who live in Canaan’s deeds are fornication and lust”). “Five things did cities. He pointedly contrasts those who take refuge Canaan command his sons: love one another, love behind city walls with those who take refuge in thievery, love lewdness, hate your masters, and God. These Canaanites appear onscreen only during don’t tell the truth” (bPes 113b). The Canaanites had Lot’s flight from Sodom, when Huston devotes sev- accumulated enormous wealth, as may be inferred eral minutes of screen-time depicting that city as a from Judg 1 : 7. Seventy kings gathered food under sensual spectacle of writhing, painted bodies. the table of Adoni-bezek who was so unimportant Similarly, the made-for-television films Jacob that Scripture did not even mention him among the (dir. Peter Hall, 1994) and Joseph (dir. Roger Young, kings of Canaan (SifDev 353). They were punished 1995) contrast Canaanites and Israelites. The only after having been admonished. The Canaanites former film discredits Esau by emphasizing his sex- had been offered the alternative to let the Israelites ual dalliances with Canaanite women (cf. Gen in and to accept both tribute and forced labor; they 26 : 34–35, where he marries Hittite women). While were sent into exile because of their deeds (SifDev Jacob cares about the traditions of his people, Esau 173, 200, 254). But there are also righteous de- tends toward and builds a Ca- scendants of Canaan, such as Abraham’s servant, naanite stone house. The film Joseph deliberately Eliezer, who was a slave because of his descent, but contrasts the false charges brought by Potiphar’s merited to join Israel (BerR 60 : 7). wife with the actual rape of Dinah by the Canaanite In the reality of their own time, the rabbinic prince Shechem. Later in this film, Judah brings a halakhah speaks of Canaanite male and female pregnant Tamar to Jacob for judgment. Blatantly slaves as a synonym for all non-Jewish slaves (e.g., revising the biblical text (Gen 38 : 24), Judah claims mMSh 4:4; mQid 1 : 3). They have an inferior status that he is torn between more humane Israelite cus- and cannot contract valid marriages. They cannot toms, which dictate that he banish Tamar, and har- act for their masters in a religious context (they can- sher Canaanite customs, which mandate her execu- not, e.g., establish a valid eruv for their owners: mEr tion. 7 : 6). They are not redeemed after seven years as Viewers might also expect a glimpse of Canaan- Hebrew slaves, but go free only as compensation for ites at the end of exodus films as the Israelites pre- serious injuries inflicted upon them by their master pare to enter Canaan. However, in most of these (Exod 21 : 26–27). Only rarely does “Canaanite” films the is portrayed as an uninhab- stand for non-Jews in general, e.g., in the printed ited paradise. Two exceptions are Moses the Lawgiver edition of the Mishnah (mToh 5 : 8), where it repla- (dir. Gianfranco De Bosio, 1974) and a made-for- ces the term nokhrit of manuscript Kaufmann (in television film entitled Moses (dir. Roger Young, 7 : 6 it replaces goi). Subsequently, Gen 9 : 25 1995). In both of these films Moses sends out spies (“Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to whose report of the land’s inhabitants alarms the his brothers”) was used by Jews as well as Christians Israelite camp. as a justification for enslaving black Africans. Departing from the traditional biblical epic, the Bibliography: ■ Feldman, L. H., “Remember Amalek!” Venge- West African film La Genèse (dir. Cheick Oumar Sis- ance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to soko, 1999) reads the biblical text in light of mod- Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus (Cincinnati, Ohio 2004). [Esp. ern conflicts in Somalia, Liberia, and the Congo. 134–46] ■ Goldenberg, D. M., The Curse of Ham: Race and Sissoko uses the story of Esau and Jacob to explore Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Princeton, themes of fratricidal strife and competition over N.J. 2003). scarce resources. Clan leaders in the film represent Günter Stemberger different modes of production: the hunter-gatherer Esau, the nomadic pastoralist Jacob, and the settled V. Film agriculturalist Hamor (son of Canaan). Most cinematic adaptations of biblical texts create Rhonda Burnette-Bletsch the impression that Abraham and his descendents were all alone in their promised land. The Canaan- ites and other inhabitants of the land appear on- Canada screen only when necessary to the storyline. When / they do appear, Canaanites serve as visual and North America moral contrasts to Israelites. They are depicted as more ornamented, more sensual, more primitive, and more corrupt than the Bible’s ancestral heroes. Cananaeans Often these quintessential “others” are also swar- /Zealots

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