Food or Drink? Pork or Wine? The Philistines and their ‘Ethnic’ Markers

The aim of the paper is to review the value and usefulness of the ethnic-markers of ancient societies, based on the assumption that certain populations practice certain eating and drinking habits. In other words, the conviction that some food and drink habits may be used as reliable tools for determining the ethnicities of ancient societies will be questioned. This argument is applied to the case of the Philistines, a population of Aegean or Aegeo- Anatolian origin, who settled in Palestine in the early twelfth century BCE.Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

Urbanizacja Filistei i Szefeli a procesy akulturacji

Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

O metodzie pisania dziejów starożytnego Izraela/Żydów w starożytności : W związku z recenzją Piotra Briksa i Witolda Tyborowskiego

Polemika z recenzją Piotra Briksa i Witolda Tyborowskiego, któa ukazała się w „Klio. Czasopismo poświęcone dziejomPolski i powszechnym” 2022, t. 64 (4), s. 171–193.&nbsp

O metodzie pisania dziejów starożytnego Izraela/Żydów w starożytności

Polemika z recenzją Piotra Briksa i Witolda Tyborowskiego, któa ukazała się w „Klio. Czasopismo poświęcone dziejom Polski i powszechnym” 2022, t. 64 (4), s. 171–193.

rec.: Ks. Andrzej Piwowar, Historia Izraela czasów Starego Testamentu. Od patriarchów do podboju Rzymian

Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

rec.: Joseph Blenkinsopp, David Remembered. Kingship and National Identity in Ancient Israel

Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

Functional Ethnicity Or, How to Describe the Societies of Ancient Palestine?

Social studies and anthropology, based on ethnographical research, take for granted the role of large populous groups in defining ethnicity. Self-definitions of the group, as well as definition by others, are interpreted as the central issues regarding large groups. The paper aims to argue for the key-role of elite groups in self-identification and ethnic creation. Small groups of elite, by defining their own “ethnicity” decided it for larger groups. This hypothesis will be tested and illustrated by test cases of ethnogenesis in Iron Age Palestine.Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

rec.: Bartosz Adamczewski, Retelling the Law. Genesis, Exodus-Numbers, and Samuel -Kings as Sequential Hypertextual Reworkings of Deuteronomy

Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

Gdy obcy stają się swoi, a swoi stają się obcymi. O zawodności identyfikacji etnicznej wspólnot w starożytnej Palestynie

The article presents the phenomenon of affiliating the foraging groups (Danites, Idumaeans) to the virtual Israel, by the Jewish elites (Biblical authors, Josephus Flavius), as well as excluding others from it (in Ezra and Deut. 7:1-8). These processes are discussed in the light of pragmatic actions undertaken by the Judean elites. The conclusions drawn from the presentation point to the fact that religious aspects–present in the inclusion and exclusion accounts–are used merely superficially, because the real reasons based on political calculations. The article highlights also the hypothesis, according to which the discussed phenomenon of readiness to exclude and include certain groups from and in Israel proves to the lack of fixed, and unchangeable limits of such group as Israel. The very sense of Israel, and its limits, was treated dynamically, and was subject to changes, depending to the political circumstances.Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span

Varia biblica

Łukasz Niesiołowski-Span