Genesis 1: Where Babylon and Greece Meet

Genesis 1 is the prelude to the entire Old Testament. It was added to the Pentateuch by the Priestly Editors sometime around 400 BCE with other editorial texts. It uses the imagery of the Babylonian Epic, Enuma Elish, a narrative enacted in the Babylonian New Year Akitu Festival, but reacts negatively against the Enuma Elish, for the latter legitimates the divine hegemony of Marduk and the political power of kings and priests. Genesis 1 also draws heavily upon the Greek epic of Hesiod, the Theogony, especially in the early verses. Genesis 1 is not a mere copy of these ancient Mediterranean tests, it is a creative new statement. It is a masterful hymn about monotheism, creation, and human equality

Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place Names by the Israeli State

Cartography, place-naming and state-sponsored explorations were central to the modern European conquest of the earth, empire building and settler-colonisation projects. Scholars often assume that place names provide clues to the historical and cultural heritage of places and regions. This article uses social memory theory to analyse the cultural politics of place-naming in Israel. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs’ study of the construction of social memory by the Latin Crusaders and Christian medieval pilgrims, the article shows Zionists’ toponymic strategies in Palestine, their superimposition of Biblical and Talmudic toponyms was designed to erase the indigenous Palestinian and Arabo-Islamic heritage of the land. In the pre-Nakba period Zionist toponymic schemes utilised nineteenth century Western explorations of Biblical ‘names’ and ‘places’ and appropriated Palestinian toponyms. Following the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, the Israeli state, now in control of 78 percent of the land, accelerated its toponymic project and pursued methods whose main features were memoricide and erasure. Continuing into the post-1967 occupation, these colonial methods threaten the destruction of the diverse historical cultural heritage of the land