The Zionist Bible (BibleWorld) by Masalha Nur

Author:Masalha, Nur [Masalha, Nur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317544647
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

THE IMPORTANCE OF TOPONYMY AND THE POLITICS OF RENAMING

Empire and biblical toponymy: the Palestine Exploration Fund

The importance of toponymy, geographical renaming, mapping and remapping was recognized by the European colonial powers. In Palestine the highly organized Zionist–Hebrew toponymy project was critical to the ethnocization of European Jews and nationalization of the Hebrew Bible. It was inspired by and followed closely British and American archaeological and geographical “exploration” expeditions of the second half of the nineteenth century and first half of the twentieth century. In line with the reinventions of European ethno-romantic nationalisms, Zionist ideological archaeology and geography claimed to “own” exclusive “national” inheritance in Palestine; the “land of Israel” was treated as a matter of exclusive ownership. This process of ethno-nationalization and reinvention of “land of the Bible” intensified after the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948 as part of the general attempt to ethno-nationalize both Jews and the Hebrew Bible (Rabkin, 2010: 130).

In Palestine of the nineteenth century geographical renaming of Palestinian Arab and Muslim place-names became a powerful tool in the hands of the European powers competing to penetrate the land of the Bible and uncover the roots of Christendom. The British were the first to recognize and exploit the power of toponymy and to link scriptural geography with biblical archaeology and colonial penetration of Palestine. The “scientific exploration” of the British Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF), which was founded in 1865 by a group of biblical scholars, scriptural geographers, military and intelligence officers and Protestant clergymen, most notably the dean of Westminster Abbey, Arthur P. Stanley, was coordinated very closely with the British politico-military establishment and spying community anxious to penetrate Ottoman Palestine, country ruled by the Muslim “Sick Man of Europe”. With offices in central London, the PEF today is an active organization which publishes an academic journal, the Palestine Exploration Quarterly . In addition, the PEF presents public lectures and funds research projects in the Near East. According to its website, “Between 1867 and 1870 Captain Warren carried out the explorations in Palestine which form the basis for our knowledge of the topography of ancient Jerusalem and the archaeology of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sherif [sic ]”; “In addition to his explorations on, under, and around the Temple Mount/al-Haram al-Sherif, Warren surveyed the Plain of Philistia and carried out a very important [military] reconnaissance of central Jordan”. 3 Captain (later General Sir) Charles Warren (1840–1927), of the British Royal Engineers and one of the key officers of the PEF, who was sent to map the “scriptural topography” of Jerusalem and investigate “the site of the temple”, noted: “[British] King Consul [James Finn] rules supreme, not over the natives of the city, but over strangers; but yet these strangers for the most part are the rightful owners, the natives, for the most part, are usurpers” (Shepherd, 1987: 127–8). Both Warren and the long-serving and famous British Consul, Finn, who was a mellinialist Christian Zionist involved with the Mission to the Jews (Shepherd, 1987: 110), apparently, “literally burrowed”

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