Religions

Research

16 pages, 270 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Surviving Persia: Esther’s Scroll, Anti-Black Racism and the Propaganda of Peace and Progress

by Janice P. De-Whyte

Religions 2022, 13(9), 829; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13090829 - 6 Sep 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2435

Esther, Mordecai and the Jewish People’s survival in ancient Persia alert readers that anti-Semitism can exist even in professedly peaceful and progressive settings. Esther’s scroll is not only designed to be read, but it too reads contemporary circumstances of trauma and oppression. This [...] Read more.

Esther, Mordecai and the Jewish People’s survival in ancient Persia alert readers that anti-Semitism can exist even in professedly peaceful and progressive settings. Esther’s scroll is not only designed to be read, but it too reads contemporary circumstances of trauma and oppression. This Hebrew Bible narrative offers a critique and a challenge to present interpreters, especially those belonging to professed progressive and peaceful societies. Esther’s scroll exposes how the propaganda of peace and progress, foundational to various imperial and institutional contexts, can veneer structures and events of violence and trauma. Informed by the death-dealing realities of anti-Black racism, a reading of Esther’s key scenes and themes provides insight into the destructive and deadly ways that injustices such as anti-Black racism are supported and sustained by institutional policies and practices. Inherent within this Jewish survival account is an indictment of complicit and culpable individuals and institutions that enable, fund and sanction violence against marginalized members. Although there are numerous sites of oppression and violence throughout society, this essay highlights the institution of academia, which is often upheld as a paragon of progress and peace but which is frequently a prime site of racism and its attendant inequities. As a piece of trauma and survival literature, Esther’s scroll makes a valuable contribution to the repertoire of resilience and resistance curated by many Black individuals and communities to counter anti-Black racism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

12 pages, 268 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Neighbor Then and Now: Is There Anything New under the Sun Regarding Race and Racism?

by Robert Wafawanaka

Religions 2022, 13(7), 598; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070598 - 27 Jun 2022

Viewed by 2155

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the concept of neighbor in antiquity and in the modern world and to account for any changes or developments. An overview of race and racism provides the background discussion to the subject matter. The essay proceeds to analyze [...] Read more.

This article seeks to examine the concept of neighbor in antiquity and in the modern world and to account for any changes or developments. An overview of race and racism provides the background discussion to the subject matter. The essay proceeds to analyze the concept of neighbor based on the research by Friedman. The analysis reveals that the concept of neighbor in antiquity and in earlier biblical texts was inclusive of various racial groupings. In addition, the focus on race and racism is absent in antiquity as dark-skinned people traversed the ancient world and fill the pages of the Bible. These individuals had positive relationships with foreign rulers and other racial groups they came into contact with. In particular, ancient Africans were admired and viewed favorably by their contemporaries. They were often the standard by which dark-skinned people were measured. The essay concludes that it is only in the modern era that race and racism become a problem based on skin color. This is also reflected in later biblical texts that espouse hatred of the other. The essay therefore calls for a new understanding of neighbor as a return to the ancient ideal also reflected in the teachings of Jesus. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

20 pages, 333 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hebrew, Hebrews, Hubris?: Diagnosing Race and Religion in the Time of COVID-19

by Richard Newton

Religions 2021, 12(11), 1020; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12111020 - 19 Nov 2021

Viewed by 3565

Abstract

This thought experiment in comparison ponders a Black man’s conviction that his Hebrew identity would make him immune to COVID-19. Surfacing the history of the claims and the scholar’s own suspicions, the paper examines the layered politics of identification. Contra an essentialist understanding [...] Read more.

This thought experiment in comparison ponders a Black man’s conviction that his Hebrew identity would make him immune to COVID-19. Surfacing the history of the claims and the scholar’s own suspicions, the paper examines the layered politics of identification. Contra an essentialist understanding of the terms, “Hebrew” and “Hebrews” are shown to be classificatory events, ones imbricated in the dynamics of racecraft. Furthermore, a contextualization of the “race religion” model of 19th century scholarship, 20th century US religio-racial movements, and the complicated legacy of Tuskegee in 21st century Black vaccine hesitancy help to outline the need for inquisitiveness rather than hubris in matters of comparison. In so doing, this working paper advances a model of the public scholar as a questioner of categories and a diagnostician of classification. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

18 pages, 2045 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Blessing of Whiteness in the Curse of Ham: Reading Gen 9:18–29 in the Antebellum South

by Wongi Park

Religions 2021, 12(11), 928; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110928 - 25 Oct 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 108222

Abstract

This essay examines the antebellum history of interpretation surrounding the curse of Ham in Gen 9:18–29. It explores how modern notions of scientific racism were read into the story as a de facto justification for the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of [...] Read more.

This essay examines the antebellum history of interpretation surrounding the curse of Ham in Gen 9:18–29. It explores how modern notions of scientific racism were read into the story as a de facto justification for the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery in the antebellum South. However, more than simply being used as a prooftext for racist agendas, the curse of Ham provided a biblical foil for circumscribing a racial hierarchy where whiteness was positioned as superior in the figure of Japheth. By considering key features of the racist antebellum interpretation, I argue that the proslavery rationalization of Christian antebellum writers is rooted in a deracialized whiteness that was biblically produced and blessed with divine authority. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

15 pages, 1458 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Creation of Adam and the Biblical Origins of Race in The Slave’s Friend (1836–1838)

by Kerry M. Sonia

Religions 2021, 12(10), 860; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100860 - 12 Oct 2021

Viewed by 10805

Abstract

The creation of Adam out of dust is a familiar tradition from the Book of Genesis. In abolitionist literature of the nineteenth century, this biblical narrative became the basis for a theory about the origins of race, arguing that because Adam was formed [...] Read more.

The creation of Adam out of dust is a familiar tradition from the Book of Genesis. In abolitionist literature of the nineteenth century, this biblical narrative became the basis for a theory about the origins of race, arguing that because Adam was formed from red clay, neither he nor his descendants were white. This interpretation of Genesis underscored the value of non-white ancestors both in the biblical narrative and in human history and undermined popular theological arguments that upheld color-based racial hierarchies that privileged whiteness in the United States. This article examines the creation of Adam in Genesis 2 and its use in racial theory and abolitionist rhetoric, focusing on the children’s anti-slavery periodical The Slave’s Friend, published from 1836 to 1838. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

13 pages, 806 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Race, Racism, and the Hebrew Bible: The Case of the Queen of Sheba

by Jillian Stinchcomb

Religions 2021, 12(10), 795; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100795 - 23 Sep 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 10695

Abstract

The Queen of Sheba, best known for visiting Solomon at the height of his rule, is commonly understood to be one of the most famous Black queens of the Bible. However, biblical texts record nothing of her family or people, any physical characteristics, [...] Read more.

The Queen of Sheba, best known for visiting Solomon at the height of his rule, is commonly understood to be one of the most famous Black queens of the Bible. However, biblical texts record nothing of her family or people, any physical characteristics, nor where, precisely, Sheba is located. How did this association between the Queen of Sheba and Blackness become naturalized? This article answers this question by mapping three first millennium textual moments that racialize the Queen of Sheba through attention to geography, skin color, and lineage in the writings of Origen of Alexandria, Flavius Josephus, and Abu Ja’afar al-Tabari. These themes are transformed in the Ethiopic text the Kebra Nagast, which positively claims the Queen of Sheba as an African monarch in contrast to the Othering that is prominent in earlier texts. The Kebra Nagast has a complex afterlife, one which acts as the ground for the also-complex modern reception of the character of the Queen of Sheba. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

16 pages, 882 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Slavery, the Hebrew Bible and the Development of Racial Theories in the Nineteenth Century

by Kevin Burrell

Religions 2021, 12(9), 742; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090742 - 9 Sep 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 12329

Abstract

Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin’s scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and American race scientists were fundamentally Christian in [...] Read more.

Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin’s scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and American race scientists were fundamentally Christian in their orientation. This paper outlines how interpretations of the Hebrew Bible within this Christian Weltanschauung facilitated the development and articulation of racial theories which burgeoned in western intellectual discourse up to and during the 19th century. The book of Genesis was a particular seedbed for identity politics as the origin stories of the Hebrew Bible were plundered in service of articulating a racial hierarchy which justified both the place of Europeans at the pinnacle of divine creation and the denigration, bestialization, and enslavement of Africans as the worst of human filiation. That the racial ethos of the period dictated both the questions exegetes posed and the conclusions they derived from the text demonstrates that biblical interpretation within this climate was never an innocuous pursuit, but rather reflected the values and beliefs current in the social context of the exegete. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 398 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ancient Egyptians in Black and White: ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ and the Hamitic Hypothesis

by Justin Michael Reed

Religions 2021, 12(9), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12090712 - 2 Sep 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 12567

Abstract

In this essay, I consider how the racial politics of Ridley Scott’s whitewashing of ancient Egypt in Exodus: Gods and Kings intersects with the Hamitic Hypothesis, a racial theory that asserts Black people’s inherent inferiority to other races and that civilization is the [...] Read more.

In this essay, I consider how the racial politics of Ridley Scott’s whitewashing of ancient Egypt in Exodus: Gods and Kings intersects with the Hamitic Hypothesis, a racial theory that asserts Black people’s inherent inferiority to other races and that civilization is the unique possession of the White race. First, I outline the historical development of the Hamitic Hypothesis. Then, I highlight instances in which some of the most respected White intellectuals from the late-seventeenth through the mid-twentieth century deploy the hypothesis in assertions that the ancient Egyptians were a race of dark-skinned Caucasians. By focusing on this detail, I demonstrate that prominent White scholars’ arguments in favor of their racial kinship with ancient Egyptians were frequently burdened with the insecure admission that these ancient Egyptian Caucasians sometimes resembled Negroes in certain respects—most frequently noted being skin color. In the concluding section of this essay, I use Scott’s film to point out that the success of the Hamitic Hypothesis in its racial discourse has transformed a racial perception of the ancient Egyptian from a dark-skinned Caucasian into a White person with appearance akin to Northern European White people. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

13 pages, 250 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Understanding the Role of the Exodus in the Institutionalization and Dismantling of Apartheid: Considering the Paradox of Justice and Injustice in the Exodus

by Masiiwa Ragies Gunda

Religions 2021, 12(8), 605; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080605 - 4 Aug 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4252

Abstract

The Exodus played an explicit and implicit role in sustaining the policy and practice of apartheid in South Africa and in various other places that went through the pains of colonization. Interestingly, the same Exodus also played a central part in the resistance [...] Read more.

The Exodus played an explicit and implicit role in sustaining the policy and practice of apartheid in South Africa and in various other places that went through the pains of colonization. Interestingly, the same Exodus also played a central part in the resistance to and the subsequent dismantling of the apartheid policy and practice in South Africa. That readers on both sides of the divide found solace in the Exodus was put down to the common assumption that guided both parties. The assumption of historicity caused the Exodus to be read as if it were a photographic record of what happened and the experience of oppression and discrimination by the readers assigned the Exodus a historical status for speaking to a historical situation. The assumption of historicity was central in the destructive uses of the Exodus thereby creating a cycle of oppressed–oppressors across the African continent, as groups took turns to seek out their own advantage. An assumption of justice was proposed as an alternative guiding principle through which justice for all, in line with pivotal events of the Old Testament, can be realized in the world. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

10 pages, 253 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Historical Role of Leviticus 25 in Naturalizing Anti-Black Racism

by James W. Watts

Religions 2021, 12(8), 570; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080570 - 23 Jul 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 18823

Abstract

Leviticus 25:39–46 describes a two-tier model of slavery that distinguishes Israelites from foreign slaves. It requires that Israelites be indentured only temporarily while foreigners can be enslaved as chattel (permanent property). This model resembles the distinction between White indentured slaves and Black chattel [...] Read more.

Leviticus 25:39–46 describes a two-tier model of slavery that distinguishes Israelites from foreign slaves. It requires that Israelites be indentured only temporarily while foreigners can be enslaved as chattel (permanent property). This model resembles the distinction between White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves in the American colonies. However, the biblical influence on these early modern practices has been obscured by the rarity of citations of Lev. 25:39–46 in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about slavery. This article reviews the history of slavery from ancient Middle Eastern antiquity through the seventeenth century to show the unique degree to which early modern institutions resembled the biblical model. It then exposes widespread knowledge of Leviticus 25 in early modern political and economic debates. Demonstrating this awareness shows with high probability that colonial cultures presupposed the two-tier model of slavery in Leviticus 25:39–46 to naturalize and justify their different treatment of White indentured slaves and Black chattel slaves. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

14 pages, 281 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Unapologetic Apologetics: Julius Wellhausen, Anti-Judaism, and Hebrew Bible Scholarship

by Stacy Davis

Religions 2021, 12(8), 560; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080560 - 21 Jul 2021

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4975

Abstract

Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) is in many ways the ancestor of modern Hebrew Bible scholarship. His Prolegomena to the History of Israel condensed decades of source critical work on the Torah into a documentary hypothesis that is still taught today in almost all Hebrew [...] Read more.

Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) is in many ways the ancestor of modern Hebrew Bible scholarship. His Prolegomena to the History of Israel condensed decades of source critical work on the Torah into a documentary hypothesis that is still taught today in almost all Hebrew Bible courses in some form. What is not taught as frequently is the anti-Judaism that underpins his hypothesis. This is in part due to unapologetic apologetics regarding Wellhausen’s bias, combined with the insistence that a nineteenth-century scholar cannot be judged by twenty-first century standards. These calls for compassion are made exclusively by white male scholars, leaving Jewish scholars the solitary task of pointing out Wellhausen’s clear anti-Judaism. In a discipline that is already overwhelmingly white, male and Christian, the minimizing of Wellhausen’s racism suggests two things. First, those who may criticize contextual biblical studies done by women and scholars of color have no problem pleading for a contextual understanding of Wellhausen while downplaying the growing anti-Judaism and nationalism that was a part of nineteenth-century Germany. Second, recent calls for inclusion in the Society of Biblical Literature may be well intentioned but ultimately useless if the guild cannot simply call one of its most brilliant founders the biased man that he was. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism)

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

The Hebrew Bible, Race, and Racism

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

Published Papers (11 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI