Politics and Compromise in the Hebrew Bible

The contributors to this volume read compromise as a social, literary, and theological strategy in the Hebrew Bible. Biblical writers, they argue, used it as a conscious rhetorical tool to negotiate authority, community boundaries, and covenant ideals.

The contributors to this volume read compromise as a social, literary, and theological strategy in the Hebrew Bible. Compromise, they argue, is not accidental redactional residue but a conscious rhetorical tool through which biblical writers negotiated authority, community boundaries, and covenant ideals; close readings and theoretical reflections reveal how negotiations, concessions, and “rotten deals” are articulated, justified, or condemned, and how such literary representations reflect or contest identity constructions of “Israel” and of the “other.”

Mark G. Brett and Rachelle Gilmour: Introduction. What is Political Compromise?

I. Prequels and Prolegomena

David M. Carr: Uncompromising Lordship. The Genesis 1-11 Etiology of Trans-species Structures of Divine and Human Domination in Interreligious Perspective - Megan Warner: Beginning at the Beginning. Compromise in Genesis? - Megan B. Turton: Strategic Ambiguity and Covenant Compromise in MT Exodus 19-24 - Gili Kugler: Israel's Encounter with Brother Edom. Tracing Compromise in Political and Religious Narratives - Benedikt Hensel: Caleb the Edomite or Caleb the Judahite? Joshua 14:6-15 and 15:13-19 and the Narrative Negotiation of Idumea, Judah, and Biblical Israel in the Context of Emerging Judaism(s) in the Persian and Early Hellenistic Periods

II. Monarchies and Alliances

Mark G. Brett: Palace-Clan Relations and the Formation of Segmentary States in the Iron Age - Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer: David, the Ephrathite. Justification, Disinformation, or Compromise? - Rachelle Gilmour: Coups and Compromise. Judahite Royal Mothers in the Book of Kings - Natalie F. Mylonas: The Gendered Dynamics of Compromise in Prophetic Marriage Metaphors

III. Exiles and Imperial Jurisdictions

Jordan Davis: Jeremiah MT 37-44. The Subversive Retelling of a Golah-oriented Narrative - Philip P. Chia and Mark G. Brett: Theo-Political "Compromise"? Interpreting Zerubbabel in East and Southeast Asia - Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Jacob L. Wright: Reconceptualizing Peoplehood as a Response to Entrenched Imperial Rule. Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 9-10 - Samasoni Moleli Alama: Concessional Compromise in Chronicles. Reconfiguration of Kingship in the Postexilic Period - Brian Fui Kolia: Pushing Political Agendas from the Diaspora. A Talanoa of Qohelet with Samoan Politics - Ian Young: Politics and Compromise in the Animal Apocalypse

• Edited by Mark G. Brett
• Edited by Jordan Davis
• Edited by Rachelle Gilmour
• Edited by Benedikt Hensel