Date: May 2, 2025 | 11:30 AM – 1:30 PM - Location: Pardee School of Global Studies, 154 Bay State Road, 2nd floor (Eilts Room)
In Memory of Amalek: Biblical Allusions in the Israel/Palestine Conflict
Mónica Isabel Rey, Adjunct Professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, Babson College and Wheaton College (MA)
Abstract: In the discipline of biblical studies the majority of research tends to focus on understanding the ancient past and the cultural milieu from which biblical religious texts were produced. As of the past few decades attention has expanded to evaluating the afterlives of the Bible and its political, cultural, and religious usage throughout history. This type of research is called reception history: how communities receive and deploy the Bible. Because the Bible is a powerful rhetorical repertoire that performs political, educational, and religious functions both in times of war and in times of relative peace it is important to examine the ways in which the Bible also serves nationalistic functions. In this paper I explore the ways in which biblical texts are being used in the ongoing crisis in Israel/Palestine and how different groups address the complexities of narratives of violence in religious texts.