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Politicizing The (In)Audible : A Short Critique Of Mark Brett's Genesis (With Specific Reference To Genesis 34), Julie Kelso

Julie Kelso

In his recent book, _Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity_, Mark Brett argues that Genesis (the first book of the Hebrew Bible) is a political text that addresses the debates within the `post-exilic' or `Persian' period concerning the nature of Israelite identity. The dominant push for ethnic purity found in the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah is time and again undermined in Genesis by an integrationist polemic against the priestly desire for the `holy seed.' In other words, Brett argues that there is a discernible, 'inclusivist' (anti-ethnocentric) voice in Genesis. In this essay, I dispute the value he …