In search of origins: Conquest, indigeneity and compromise

Abstract

This paper builds on two trajectories of our recent scholarship: (1) the study of indigenous motifs in Priestly and pre-Priestly literature, and (2) an examination of Zionist and scholarly debates in the formative years of the State of Israel concerning a Jewish ‘right to the land’. The ancestral traditions in Genesis articulate belonging to the land through genealogies, covenants, treaties, and shared ancestry rather than through conquest, defining Israel’s identity in relation to surrounding peoples rather than in opposition to them. These traditions, preserved especially in the Priestly materials of Genesis, emerged in contexts of dispossession and exile, where aspirations for unconditional belonging existed alongside forms of coexistence with neighboring groups. It is therefore illuminating to consider how these traditions have been received, adapted, and reinterpreted within modern Zionist scholarship.