The Name Game: Archaeologies of the Land of the Bible, Eretz Yisrael, the Holy Land and Palestine. Issue 1 (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nathanson, Michael
• Is Part Of: Scandinavian journal of the Old Testament. Volume 33:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 65
• Page End: 81
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: Archaeologies -- Cis-Jordan -- Philistines -- Palestine -- Eretz Yisrael -- Time before present -- representation; 221
• DOI: 10.1080/09018328.2019.1600256
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0901-8328

Abstract

ABSTRACT: In post-modernist terms, archaeology, like history, is not practiced for itself but for someone or something. That much is clear with the archaeology of the c is -Jordanian region of the Near East where it has served to sustain anthropological-ethnological models driven by biblical and nationalistic-based theories. Words, terms, labels and names have meanings that not infrequently are consequential thus, constructing an archeology-abetted past of spaces named Holy Land, Eretz Yisrael and Land of the Bible belies the discipline's claim to scientific neutrality. No less, naming the c is -Jordanian territories of the Bronze and Iron Ages a "Palestine" is anachronistic and not uniformly acceptable. As long as Archaeology is tasked with proving the veracity of ancient epigraphy and texts and legitimizing claims of ancestral privilege and ur-ownership of ancient lands, the more glaring its failure and the greater the impediment to settling the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.