BELONGING IN GENESIS: BIBLICAL ISRAEL AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNAL IDENTITY by Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ellen F. Davis, Supervisor ___________________________ Willie James Jennings ___________________________ Joel S. Kaminsky ___________________________ Ranjana Khanna ___________________________ Anathea Portier-Young Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2008 i v ABSTRACT BELONGING IN GENESIS: BIBLICAL ISRAEL AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF COMMUNAL IDENTITY by Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Ellen F. Davis, Supervisor ___________________________ Willie James Jennings ___________________________ Joel S. Kaminsky ___________________________ Ranjana Khanna ___________________________ Anathea Portier-Young An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2008 Copyright by S. Amanda Beckenstein Mbuvi 2008 Abstract Genesis is central to both hegemonic and counterhegemonic conceptions of communal identity. Read one way, the book undergirds contemporary assumptions about the nature of communality and the categories through which it is constructed. Read another way, however, it undermines them. This project considers these two readings of Genesis, their asymmetrical approaches to the book, and the intersection between them. Using family storytelling as an approach to biblical interpretation allows this study to hold together the constitution of the reading community and the interpretation of the biblical text. In a Eurocentric reading of Genesis, the constitution of the reading community governs engagement of the biblical text. Conversely, in the YHWH-centric reading advocated here, the biblical text governs the constitution of the reading community. This study reopens the question of what it means to be an “us” rather than leaving participation in an “us” as an (often unacknowledged) a priori condition of all interpretation. In doing so it does not deny the existence or the significance of such preexisting commitments, but rather it refuses to regard those commitments as fixed and final. From an exegetical standpoint, this study challenges Eurocentrism by finding in Genesis a vision of communality that, in emphasizing the importance of living out the relatedness of all humans to one another and to God, holds the potential for more fruitful iv relationships between communities. From a methodological standpoint, it offers a reading of Genesis that incorporates features of the text that have been neglected by colonizing readings and avoids the difficulties and internal inconsistencies from which they suffer. Making use of Benedict Anderson’s account of the relationship between the imagined community of the nation and religiously imagined communities, as well as Jonathan Sheehan’s account of the Enlightenment Bible, this study argues that certain ways of reading the Bible arose to help the West articulate its sense of itself and its others. Drawing attention to the text’s reception and the way in which Eurocentric approaches displace Jews and marginalize (the West’s) others, this project considers alternative ways of conceptualizing the relationship between the Bible and those who call it their own. v Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................ iv 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1 2. Reading the Self in Scripture ...........................................................................13 2.1 “Ourselves as Elements in its Structure”: Overcoming Readers’ Reality ......15 2.2 Adam and Eve as the Couple Next Door: Reaffirming Readers’ Reality .......18 2.2.1 Sacred Literature and Secular Norms: Conflict..................................................... 19 2.2.2 Sacred Literature and Secular Norms: Blurring the Boundaries .................. 23 2.1.2.1 Mediating the Bible and Constructing Community Through Language................... 24 2.1.2.2 Ways of Reading Others: Contrast, Identification and Biblical Interpretation....... 28 2.3 Conclusion....................................................................................................................35 3. Family Storytelling: Constructing Community Through Story.............37 3.1 Family Storytelling ....................................................................................................38 3.2 The Relevance of Family Storytelling for Biblical Scholarship ..................46 3.3 Story and Biology in the Making of the Family ................................................54 3.4 Narrative and the Construction of Identity in the Bible and Beyond.......58 3.5 Reading Genesis as Family Narrative..................................................................66 3.5.1 Genealogy as Family Story ............................................................................................. 66 3.5.2 Interpretive Implications ............................................................................................... 76 4. Recreating Family................................................................................................82 4.1 Creating Family: Kinship in the Cosmos.............................................................85 4.2 Recreating Family: Generation and Degeneration.........................................92 4.3 Reading Family: Genesis as Family Narrative............................................... 115 5. Peoplehood ......................................................................................................... 118 vi 5.1 A People Without A Profane History ................................................................ 120 5.2 Noah’s Bad Seed: A Curse and its Aftermath.................................................. 130 5.2.1 The Social Ladder and the Family Tree..................................................................132 5.2.2 Configuring Collectivity.................................................................................................147 5.2.3 The Aftermath of Noah’s Curse..................................................................................167 5.3 The Family Business: From Noah’s Curse to Abra(ha)m’s Blessing....... 194 6. Fruitfulness......................................................................................................... 197 6.1 The Other Patriarch ............................................................................................... 198 6.2 Mother Outsider...................................................................................................... 206 6.2.1 An Ambiguous Narrative ..............................................................................................207 6.2.2 Trible’s Text of Terror ...................................................................................................212 6.2.3 Weems’ Text of Succor...................................................................................................240 6.2.4 Hagar and Sarai Beyond Black and White.............................................................247 6.3 Imitation of Covenant Life ................................................................................... 256 6.4 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 275 7. The Genesis of the Western Reader: Nationalism, Theology, and Culture ................................................................................................................................... 280 7.1 Translating Biblical Authority............................................................................ 285 7.2 Reimagining Scripture for a Reimagined Community................................ 290 7.2.1 The Philological Bible: “From Text to Document” .............................................290 7.2.2 The Pedagogical Bible: Universalizing Scripture ...............................................291 7.2.3 The Poetic Bible: Identification and the Politics of National Literature ..293 7.2.4 The Historical Bible: Sacrality and Objectivity....................................................297 vii 7.3 The Cultural Bible: We Who Are Heirs of Sarah and Abraham by Flesh and Spirit ........................................................................................................................................ 307 7.4 Eurocentrism and the Individual Scholar....................................................... 310 8. Postscript............................................................................................................. 317 Bibliography ........................................................................................................... 323 Biography................................................................................................................. 333 viii A Note on Terminology and Translation “Biblical Israel” refers to the textual construction. “Ancient Israel” refers to the people in antiquity. The modern state of Israel is always named accordingly. In my own usage