The Sociology of "Gentilics" in Biblical and Northwest Semitic Literature

“Investigating the logic of the "gentilic" across different textual genres and narrative contexts in the Bible opens a window into rethinking how biblical ideas still affect contemporary challenges involving the politics of identity and belonging. ”

Team Members/Contributors

Ki-Eun Jang New York University Contact Me

About this dissertation fellowship

As reflected in the English word “gentile,” the grammatical term “gentilic” is widely employed in biblical scholarship to refer to the adjectival noun built from the suffix -y that adds a sense of identity, as in kǝna‘ănî (Canaanite), derived from kǝna‘an (Canaan). Although the notion of race and ethnicity has been central to defining the gentilic’s usage, this framework prevents us from recognizing the perplexing nature of the identity landscape on its own terms. Drawing on a comprehensive collection of the gentilic data attested in the Hebrew Bible as well as Northwest Semitic inscriptional evidence from the ancient Levant, this project explores the logic, perspectives, and patterns working behind the gentilic’s contextual usage in order to understand indigenous paradigms informing the politics of identity in ancient Israel and its neighbors. Combining linguistic-anthropological analysis and literary-historical study, the findings highlight two social mechanisms: (1) the divergent range of identity marked with the gentilic—including territory, occupation, clan, polity, mode of life, and religion—reflects a complex network of intergroup and interpersonal relationships, where intersectionality and inconsistency are part of the normal pattern of identity; and (2) the scope of perspectives and meanings assumed in the gentilic label shifts, even if the label itself persists, depending on the scribal communities’ socio-political setting under later imperial powers of the a​ncient Near East. This study, in turn, develops the dialogue between ancient and modern discourses on the categories of identification and differentiation, interrogating how the longstanding perceptions of religious and racial “othering” shape the ways in which we misconceive the biblical representation of identity.