Dissertation by Dustin Nash
“Your Brothers, the Children of Israel”: Ancient Near Eastern Political Discourse and the Process of Biblical Composition
The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that u... more The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that use the Hebrew term אח (“brother”) to define an inter-group relationship between two or more Israelite tribes. For over a century, biblical scholars have interpreted this terminology as conceptually dependent on the birth narratives and genealogies of Gen 29-50, reiterated in stories and lists elsewhere in the biblical corpus. However, examination of the Bible’s depiction of the Israelite tribes as “brothers” outside these seventeen passages indicates that the static genealogical structure of the twelve-tribe system constitutes a late ideological framework that harmonizes dissonant descriptions of Israel as an association of “brother” tribes. Significantly, references to particular tribal groups as “brothers” in the Mari archives yields a new paradigm for understanding the origins of Israelite tribal “brotherhood” that sets aside this ideological structure. Additionally, it reveals the ways in which biblical scribes exploited particular terms and ideas as the fulcrums for editorial intervention in Hebrew Bible’s composition. More specifically, close analysis of these Akkadian texts reveals the existence of an ancient Near Eastern political discourse of “brotherhood” that identified tribal groups as independent peer polities, bound together through obligations of reciprocal peaceful relations and supportive behavior. A detailed examination of Judg 19-21 brings to light a textual core that uses the word אח in this precise sense, indicating that the original source concerned a war between Israel and Benjamin as separate polities of parity status. The polysemic character of אח allowed later scribes to incorporate this textual tradition by reorienting the term’s situated meaning to fit evolving ideologies of Israelite and early Jewish identity in a manner that is detectable in additional biblical passages.
Journal Articles by Dustin Nash
Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 2019
Opening in 2007, the Creation Museum of Petersburg, KY presents visitors with a Young Earth Creat... more Opening in 2007, the Creation Museum of Petersburg, KY presents visitors with a Young Earth Creationist argument against evolution and physical cosmology. Instead, the facility asserts that science proves the biblical description of God’s creation of the cosmos and all life upon it a little less than 6,000 years ago. While official documentation suggests the museum’s intentionally missionary function, closer examination reveals its important role as a memory place that legitimates a Young Earth Creationist identity, as well as identities tied to affiliated “culture wars” issues. The past that the Creation Museum asks visitors to remember, however, contains notable silences with regard to the place of Jews and Jewishness within sacred history, despite structural allusions to the theological framework of Dispensationalism. While institutionally forgetting Jews, the facility emphatically stresses the memory of dinosaurs as part of the biblical, human past. Analysis shows that decisions related to the museum’s theologically diverse audience and a desire to present Young Earth Creationism as “scientific” has led to a surprising discursive connection between the memory of Jews and dinosaurs at the site. In other words, by framing dinosaurs as witnesses to the truth of Christian scripture, the Creation Museum is compelled to depict Jews and Jewishness as quixotic fossils with no particular function in an otherwise purposefully designed universe.
Vetus Testamentum, 2018
Genesis 36 contains a distinctively large and heterogeneous body of genealogical materials pertai... more Genesis 36 contains a distinctively large and heterogeneous body of genealogical materials pertaining to Esau and the kingdom of Edom. The present study suggests that the chapter reached its unique shape as the result of a specifically Judahite discursive project. In particular, a scribe expanded a preexisting priestly genealogy of Esau in order to create a robust boundary between entities defined as Edom and Israel. New interpretations of archaeological evidence from southern Jordan and the Negev reveal the context of dynamic interaction and fluid identities that likely prompted this expansion. The resulting text rejects memories of affiliation between Negevite and south Jordanian peoples in order to elevate Judah’s claim to the name and identity of Israel.
Essays by Dustin Nash
Assyriology and the Allosaurus: Sources, Symbols, and Memory at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter
in Uses and Misuses of Ancient Mediterranean Sources, 2022
The Creation Museum and the affiliated Ark Encounter, both located in northern Kentucky, are the ... more The Creation Museum and the affiliated Ark Encounter, both located in northern Kentucky, are the premier Young Earth Creationist public attractions in the world. Operated jointly by the parachurch apologetics ministry AiG (“Answers in Genesis”), the expressed goal of these facilities is to convince visitors that the Bible accurately records the natural history of our planet. Thus they present artifacts, dioramas, interactive video displays, and placards to argue that science supports the biblical description of God’s creation of the cosmos and a global flood. Most scholarly attention regarding these depictions of the past have focused on their portrayal of dinosaurs and the assertion that these “terrible lizards” cohabited with humans. Yet, while paleontology presents a clear challenge to the chronology that the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter advocate, so does Assyriology. Despite this similarity, the present paper will show that the facilities deploy strikingly different rhetorical strategies in their representation of dinosaurs versus ancient human societies of the Near East. More specifically, a focused analysis of how these Young Earth Creationist attractions utilize Sumerian and Akkadian sources, representations of cuneiform writing, and ancient Mesopotamian material culture (especially artistic representations of the Uruk period en) in comparison to that of dinosaurs reveals consistent boundaries of silence and justification. Thus, while significant textual space is devoted to explaining an alternative dating for geological strata, the archaeological and textual evidence of ancient Mesopotamian history is left almost entirely unexamined. This suggests that expectations of visitor unfamiliarity regarding ancient Near Eastern history and literature has structured the rhetoric of both attractions, allowing them to legitimate the cultural memory of the past that they construct through the strategic appropriation of information drawn from the field of Assyriology without devoting space to its critical examination.
(Re)Considering Diversity, Human Difference and Global Engagement at Muhlenberg, 2018
Conference Papers by Dustin Nash
Assyriology and the Allosaurus: Inverse Rhetorical Strategies Concerning the “Past” at the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter
The Creation Museum and the affiliated Ark Encounter, both located in northern Kentucky, are the ... more The Creation Museum and the affiliated Ark Encounter, both located in northern Kentucky, are the premier Young Earth Creationist public attractions in the world. Operated jointly by the parachurch apologetics ministry AiG (“Answers in Genesis”), the expressed goal of these facilities is to convince visitors that the Bible accurately records the natural history of our planet. Thus they present artifacts, dioramas, interactive video displays, and placards to argue that science supports the biblical description of God’s creation of the cosmos and a global flood. Most scholarly attention regarding these depictions of the past have focused on their portrayal of dinosaurs and the assertion that these “terrible lizards” cohabited with humans. Yet, while paleontology presents a clear challenge to the chronology that the Creation Museum and Ark Encounter advocate, so does Assyriology. Despite this similarity, the present paper will show that the facilities deploy strikingly different rhetorical strategies in their representation of dinosaurs versus ancient human societies of the Near East. More specifically, a focused analysis of how these Young Earth Creationist attractions utilize Sumerian and Akkadian sources, representations of cuneiform writing, and ancient Mesopotamian material culture (especially artistic representations of the Uruk period en) in comparison to that of dinosaurs reveals consistent boundaries of silence and justification. Thus, while significant textual space is devoted to explaining an alternative dating for geological strata, the archaeological and textual evidence of ancient Mesopotamian history is left almost entirely unexamined. This suggests that expectations of visitor unfamiliarity regarding ancient Near Eastern history and literature has structured the rhetoric of both attractions, allowing them to legitimate the cultural memory of the past that they construct through the strategic appropriation of information drawn from the field of Assyriology without devoting space to its critical examination.
Dinosaurs and Jews at the Creation Museum: History, Memory, and the Future of Evangelical-Jewish Relations in America
The Creation Museum (Petersburg, KY) embraces dinosaurs and their bones as witnesses to the histo... more The Creation Museum (Petersburg, KY) embraces dinosaurs and their bones as witnesses to the historicity of the biblical creation narrative. While many have critiqued the institution’s presentation of the past, approaching this space as a memory place reveals previously unrecognized implications that its historical claims entail. In particular, the paper will show that expanding the place of dinosaurs within the Young Earth creationist memory of the past has compelled a parallel diminution in the representation of ancient and modern Jews in exhibits and related literature. In other words, having incorporated paleontology into its theological worldview, the Creation Museum is compelled to present Jews as quixotic fossils with no particular function in the divine plan for history. As the museum’s profile as a memory place for American evangelicals grows, this could undercut the theological foundations that have encouraged robust relations between that group and Jews over the past half-century.
Myth and Secularism: The Place of ‘Myth’ in Teaching Human Difference and Global Engagement
In my application to join the reading group “The Myth of Liberal Secularism” in the fall of 2016,... more In my application to join the reading group “The Myth of Liberal Secularism” in the fall of 2016, I cited the potential benefit that our discussions and readings might have for my First Year Seminar “Proving the Unprovable: Religion, Science, and the ‘Unknown’ in Modernity.” While this was indeed the case, I was struck by the way in which material from another of my courses, “Myth, Religion, and Creation,” illuminated my understanding of our shared readings, and suggested the important role that myth and mythology could play in teaching about Human Difference and Global Engagement. Our present society holds particular assumptions regarding the term “myth.” First, there is a widespread belief that “myth” represents an element of the human past, and not the present. Second, that in that past “myth” was synonymous with a thing called “religion.” And third, that the word fundamentally communicates a sense of the untrue: i.e. “the myth of the Loch Ness Monster.” In this paper, I will show that theoretical approaches to myth have offered compelling deconstructions for each of these assumptions. In their place, researchers have suggested an approach that highlights the way in which groups give prestige to certain stories and create paths for the social collective to share in those stories’ importance. Such an understanding takes myth out of the shadowy and “demon-haunted” vision many hold of the past, and exposes its continued function and presence in the world today. Working with this understanding of myth, I will examine Saba Mahmood’s “Secularism, Family Law, and Gender Inequality.” This analysis will show that application of contemporary theories of myth provides a new vocabulary for understanding arguments regarding secularism, while also emphasizing elements of the narratives that support secularist ideologies that may otherwise go unnoticed. With regard to Human Difference and Global Engagement in Muhlenberg’s curriculum, this analysis also reveals the breadth of locations that learning and teaching about forms of diversities can take place on our campus.
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: Judah, Edom, and Converse Constructions of Israeliteness in Genesis 36
Genesis 36 contains a large and detailed group of genealogies and lists pertaining to the kingdom... more Genesis 36 contains a large and detailed group of genealogies and lists pertaining to the kingdom of Edom, Judah’s ancient southeastern neighbor. Contemporary ethnographic studies and archaeological evidence support the claim by certain scholars that this material and other descriptions of the Israelites’ ancestral ties to regional peoples functioned to maintain the boundaries of the Judahite returnee community’s distinctive identity in the post-exilic period. Yet, the unique scope and detail of Gen 36, as well as its conspicuous position within the narrative, still require explanation. Indeed, the theory that this material worked to distinguish an Edomite “Them” from a Judahite “Us” only explains the current function of a passage that internal evidence suggests is an aggregation of separate traditions. Moreover, the genealogies of Gen 36 distinguish Edom from Israel: not Edom from Judah. The present paper will address these issues by approaching Gen 36 from the standpoint of ancient Near Eastern scribal culture and the premise of a fundamental distinction between Israelite and Judahite traditions within the biblical corpus. This perspective offers a new direction for understanding the purpose of the compiled data the passage presents, as well as the ideological goals that guided the textual formation of Genesis as a whole. Specifically, in an effort to maintain a communal boundary marker between returnee Judahites in the post-exilic period and their neighbors, the scribes responsible for Gen 36 were forced to define the Israeliteness, both negatively and positively, of the Edomites and themselves.
The Separate Contours of Sim’alite and Yaminite Group Identity in Letters from Mari
Scholarly interpretations of the precise socio-structural relationship between those tribal confe... more Scholarly interpretations of the precise socio-structural relationship between those tribal confederacies identified as the “Sim’alites” (DUMUmeš si-ma-al) and the “Yaminites” (DUMUmeš ya-mi-na) in letters and administrative records from the site of Mari (ca. 18th century BCE) have changed dramatically in recent years. Above all, there is growing recognition that use of the term ḫana in the Mari archives most commonly refers to “mobile pastoralists” in general, or “Sim’alites” in particular, and does not represent an overarching ethnonym that encompassed both Sim’alites and Yaminites. The divergent terminology that identifies the sub-units of each group, gayum for the Sim’alites and li’mum for the Yaminites, as well as these lower order collectives’ political viability, underscores the larger groups’ fundamental separation. The present paper supports this interpretive trend by contributing new evidence of the distinct contours of Sim’alite and Yaminite group identity. Thus, by examining the ways in which both peoples use the Akkadian fraternal kin term aḫum (i.e. “brother” or “kinsman”) to communicate individual membership within these tribal associations, significant differences in their conception of the boundaries that demarcate intra-group identity become evident. More specifically, while Sim’alite usage of aḫum privileges the shared identity of all Sim’alites as ḫana, regardless of gayum affiliation, internal Yaminite exploitation of this same term limits its reference to membership within the same li’mum.
The Representation of Inter-Group “Brotherhood” in the Hebrew Bible and the Mari Archives: The Akkadian Evidence and its Biblical Implications
The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that u... more The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that use the Hebrew term "‘ach" (“brother”) to define an inter-group relationship between two or more Israelite tribes. For over a century, biblical scholars have interpreted this terminology as literarily or traditionally dependent on the birth narratives and genealogies of Gen 29-50, reiterated in stories and lists elsewhere in the biblical corpus. However, texts ARM XXVI 358, ARM XXVII 68, FM II 116, A.3572, and A.3577 from the early second millennium site of Mari suggest a new paradigm for understanding the use of fraternal kin terms in the representation of inter-group relations. This paper will reveal the important representational and contextual similarities between the Mari texts’ use of the Akkadian term "ahum" to describe relationships between the Yaminites, Sim’alites, Numha, and Yamutbaal, and usage of "‘ach" for the tribes of Israel in particular biblical passages. In both corpora grammatical, syntactic, and lexical dynamics define the corporate character of the relationship that the fraternal kin term describes, including the depiction of inter-group dialogue in the 1st person singular. In addition, the surrounding literary context intimately links use of "ahum" and "‘ach" in the Mari and biblical texts to reciprocal obligations of non-aggression and supportive behavior, particularly regarding the mobilization of military forces. Yet, close analysis of additional texts from Mari challenges the common genealogical interpretation of "ahum’s" use in this context. Instead, the evidence indicates that ARM XXVI 358, ARM XXVII 68, FM II 116, A.3572, A.3577 and particular biblical passages bear witness to an ancient political “discourse of brotherhood” between independent peoples, raising important literary questions regarding the biblical representation of Israel’s tribal origins and unity.
Enlil and Marduk, Nippur and Babylon: Old Babylonian Religious Ideology and the Geography of Religion
"My Brother!" Hebrew אח and Benjamin’s Place within Israel in Ju 19-21
Judges 19-21 contains the account of a war between Israel and Benjamin. Traditional interpretatio... more Judges 19-21 contains the account of a war between Israel and Benjamin. Traditional interpretation has viewed this conflict as an intra-tribal civil war. However, there are aspects of the text that contradict the view of Benjamin as an Israelite tribe. This includes several instances in which Israel unexpectedly refers to Benjamin as an "’ah" or “brother.” Nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible does Israel, speaking as the embodiment of the twelve tribes, refer to one of its own tribes using the word ’ah. This paper suggests that the word "’ah" in Ju 20:13, 23 and 28, and 21:6 should be understood in a diplomatic, rather than familial, sense. Certain biblical passages, as well as extra-biblical evidence from Amarna and Mari suggest that such diplomatic usage signified equality and parity between two distinct parties. In Ju 19-21, this language presents a Benjamin that is equal to and separate from Israel, rather than a subdivision of it. This observation requires one to question further the biblical presentation of the formation of the tribal confederacy of Israel, as well as provide scholars with a better understanding of inter-tribal discourse in the Ancient Near East. It seems that in constructing the received text of Ju 19-21, an editor brought together a number of sources, including at least one that presented Benjamin as a non-Israelite group.
Encyclopedia Entries by Dustin Nash
“Atrahasis,” "Descent of Ishtar," and “Enuma Elish”
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Dec 2016
Book Reviews by Dustin Nash
Review of Biblical Literature, Mar 9, 2016
Translations by Dustin Nash
"Rose of Lebanon" by Leah Aini
Asia: The Quarterly Magazine of Asian Literature 1/3: 116-150., 2006
Papers by Dustin Nash
Your Brothers, The Children Of Israel: Ancient Near Eastern Political Discourse And The Process Of Biblical Composition
The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that u... more The Hebrew Bible contains seventeen isolated passages, scattered from Genesis to 2 Samuel, that use the Hebrew term אח (“brother”) to define an inter-group relationship between two or more Israelite tribes. For over a century, biblical scholars have interpreted this terminology as conceptually dependent on the birth narratives and genealogies of Gen 29-50, reiterated in stories and lists elsewhere in the biblical corpus. However, examination of the Bible’s depiction of the Israelite tribes as “brothers” outside these seventeen passages indicates that the static genealogical structure of the twelve-tribe system constitutes a late ideological framework that harmonizes dissonant descriptions of Israel as an association of “brother” tribes. Significantly, references to particular tribal groups as “brothers” in the Mari archives yields a new paradigm for understanding the origins of Israelite tribal “brotherhood” that sets aside this ideological structure. Additionally, it reveals the ways in which biblical scribes exploited particular terms and ideas as the fulcrums for editorial intervention in Hebrew Bible’s composition. More specifically, close analysis of these Akkadian texts reveals the existence of an ancient Near Eastern political discourse of “brotherhood” that identified tribal groups as independent peer polities, bound together through obligations of reciprocal peaceful relations and supportive behavior. A detailed examination of Judg 19-21 brings to light a textual core that uses the word אח in this precise sense, indicating that the original source concerned a war between Israel and Benjamin as separate polities of parity status. The polysemic character of אח allowed later scribes to incorporate this textual tradition by reorienting the term’s situated meaning to fit evolving ideologies of Israelite and early Jewish identity in a manner that is detectable in additional biblical passages.
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Dissertation by Dustin Nash
Journal Articles by Dustin Nash
Essays by Dustin Nash
Conference Papers by Dustin Nash
Encyclopedia Entries by Dustin Nash
Book Reviews by Dustin Nash
Translations by Dustin Nash
Papers by Dustin Nash