Social Identity Approach: Identity-Constructing Elements in the Psalms Pesher
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SOCIAL IDENTITY APPROACH: IDENTITY-CONSTRUCTING ELEMENTS IN THE PSALMS PESHER Jutta Jokiranta University of Helsinki Introduction: What Is Identity? Qumran scholarship could hardly manage without the concept of “iden- tity.” In this book, the concept occurs in the very title and is relevant for a number of papers. In its common usage, the word “identication” denotes identication of the group behind the Scrolls, such as the Es- senes or some other named group, or anchoring specic sobriquets in more or less specic history. Scholars also “identify” parallel ideas in two or more texts. Although the concept of identity per se does not need clarication, it may prove useful to unravel what we are considering when we study a group’s identity: what makes members of a group hold together, how they are distinct from others, and in what ways they achieve a positive sense of belonging to the group. All these questions are addressed by social psychology of group processes. In the case of ancient texts, real persons and groups existed, and this inuenced the composition and transmission of the texts in question. Concerning the Qumran movement,1 the time period is quite limited, which makes our investigation of group identity potentially fruitful and the conclusions reached more plausible. First, we shall introduce insights from the social identity approach in order to conceptualize and hypothesize about group phenomena in general. We shall then offer our observations on the Psalms Pesher (4QpPsa) as some examples of potential elements that construct identity. With the help of such an investigation, we may better be able to detect 1 The groups behind the Scrolls—the members who used, preserved, copied, or composed the scrolls—are here called “the Qumran movement,” without the idea that they were necessarily restricted to the settlement at Qumran, but assuming that since the large corpus of texts and the settlement were at Qumran, this location played a role in the movement. 86 jutta jokiranta what groups and identities are about and what happens when group members express and construct their identity. The Social Identity Approach The social identity theory was developed in the 70ies and 80ies by Professor Henri Tajfel and his colleagues at Bristol University.2 The fundamental argument was that human behavior cannot be explained solely psychologically (individualistically) or sociologically, but a truly social psychological explanation is needed. People live in a social system, and this social system has psychological implications for an individual’s behavior, perceptions and emotions.3 Groups change individuals. A person derives much of his self-denition from social groups. Groups are thus not merely the results of collections of individual “inputs,” but a system of shared patterns, which makes collective behavior possible.4 The social identity theory is based on an observation concerning categorization: “The perception of people in terms of their social group membership leads to a tendency to exaggerate the perceived similarities within groups and the perceived differences between groups.”5 This idea of stereotyping (accentuation) is further developed in the self-cat- egorization theory:6 besides a personal identity (what makes a person distinguishable from other people, e.g., name, age, relatives, personal characteristics), human beings have a social identity as members of a 2 See, e.g., H. Tajfel, Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (London: Academic Press, 1978); H. Tajfel and J.C. Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conict,” in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (eds. W.G. Austin and S. Worchel; Monterey, California: Brooks-Cole, 1979) 33–47; H. Tajfel, “Social Stereotypes and Social Groups,” in Intergroup Behavior (eds. J.C. Turner and H. Giles; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1981) 144–67; J.C. Turner, “Social Categorization and the Self-Concept: A Social-Cognitive Theory of Group Behavior,” in Advances in Group Processes: Theory and Research vol. 2 (ed. E.J. Lawler; Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press, 1985). 3 J.C. Turner, “Henri Tajfel: An Introduction,” in Social Groups and Identities: Developing the Legacy of Henri Tajfel (ed. W.P. Robinson; International Series in Social Psychology; Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996), 19. 4 Turner, “Henri Tajfel: An Introduction,” 19; S.A. Haslam, Psychology in Organiza- tions: The Social Identity Approach (2d ed.; London: SAGE, 2004), 17. 5 Turner, “Henri Tajfel: An Introduction,” 13. 6 Turner, “Social Categorization,” Haslam, Psychology in Organizations, 28–34. The social identity theory and the self-categorization theory are often referred to as the “social identity approach.” They are based on both empirical and theoretical research and are currently used and being developed in social psychology..