Ancient Zionism: The Biblical Origins of the National Idea

by Avi Erlich

Book Overview

Discusses the interconnectedness of Jewish land, law, and literature, and criticizes modern Jewish nationalism. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0029023521
• ISBN13: 9780029023525
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 277 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Ok but disappointed

This book came by mail on good time, and the book is in good shape, so I have no real complaint. My disappointment is of the viewpoint of the writer, who does not have a Christian faith perspective. Nothing you can do about this; thanks for the good service of prompt delivery.

Attitudes about land

How do people relate to sovereign land? Avi Erlich shows us that there are at least six ways in which to think about land. The first of these is the principle of non-ownership. This was adopted by many native American Indians, who regarded land as sacred and not available to be possessed. This view is now respected, as it shows a concern for stewardship of the land. However, Erlich points out that with property carved out for most land, this view is no longer dominant anywhere. I would say that it is just as well. After all, as the "tragedy of the commons" shows, we humans take care of land even more poorly when we have no ownership and thus no responsibility for it. The second is the idea that a person owns the field that he or she farms. But such an idea can not be made real without laws and nations. Without these trappings of civilization, the world would simply turn into one where one's property was determined only by might. Still, if one does have laws and nations, this idea provides a good starting point for the concept of individual land ownership. The third idea is of using land as a mere business arrangement. The land inside some boundary would be a place that gave businesses certain rights. Of course, the enforcement of such rights would need to come from somewhere else. A fourth idea is that of Empire, simply taking the view that more is better. Erlich doesn't like this, but I think we need to look into it more deeply. When folks grab more land than they would actually purchase at a fair auction, then I think we can talk of Empire in a negative sense. We'd then have people stealing land and holding it by force when others would make better use of it. On the other hand, if people stole no land at all, but merely bought what they could afford, used it, and sold land when others offered them more than they felt it was worth to them, I think it would be wrong to blame them for being proud of how much land they held. The fifth idea takes up much of the book. It is intellectual nationalism, which means assigning traditions, laws, customs, and other such attributes to a given region. Unless one can think of land in this way, then these sets of traditions, laws, and customs will have no base in which to exist. This book made me realize that by recognizing this can we see that we all lose something if we casually remove all the land from various groups, just as we all lose something if we hunt some species into extinction. The final idea is Erlich's least favorite way of looking at land, namely as a bunch of multicolored regions on a map. Those regions may be rather arbitrary, with several of them having people of the same culture and language, or with one people being divided up as a minority in a couple of adjacent lands. Erlich illustrates these ideas with Biblical stories. I think these stories do not always make the best illustrations of the points, but that is how he does it. I think Erlich's best point

Who Are the Chinese?

Avi Erlich has written a thought-provoking book in which he writes that Zionism is a particular form of nationalism which was invented by the ancient Hebrews. Moreover the ancient Hebrews invented an "imaginative link" between the religion (or law), the land, and the people. Erlich calls this particular brand of nationalism by the name of "intellectual nationalism." He finds it not only among the ancient Hebrews but also in the Greek polis and in the United States where the symbol of "purple mountains' majesty represents the Bill of Rights and other enlightened values" (p. 259). Most of Erlich's book is a retelling and reinterpretation of biblical stories. I am not convinced that he proves his point for two reasons. First, a look into a sociological dictionary shows that a definition of nationalism is that it is an *ideology* which has patriotism as a central value and loyalty to one's nation as a conscious emotion as a goal. Except for the terminology, Erlich's definition of intellectual nationalism fits this definition to the T. So what Erlich finds as distinctive about his conception of the ancient Hebrews is really more common. Second, though Erlich is not dealing with his biblical stories as history but as a literary heritage, I think he does need to ground them in a historical basis. Another symbol of the United Sates mentioned by Erlich is manifest destiny. "The fantasy of manifest destiny allowed us to seize a continent to mark our values." Manifest destiny is a phenomenon which can shown to have a historical basis. In contrast Erlich offers his reinterpretations of biblical stories. I spent some time thinking about the question of whether intellectual nationalism could be applied to another people, perhaps the Chinese. Who are the Chinese? They are really diverse groups of peoples united by law (or religion) which controls a geographical area. Though times have changed, their religion used to be called Mao-ism. Yet even though times have changed, these peoples still have emotional ties to their nation. So why does Erlich not consider the Chinese as having intellectual nationalism? Erlich's book rates four stars for having to think about his ideas for a while.