Ezekiel, Ethnicity, and Identity

Abstract

The written sources from the ancient Near East are for the most part authored from the perspective of the dominant group and yield a very limited view on people’s identities from an emic point of view that would correspond to their own self-identification. Self-defined minority groups in Mesopotamia have not left behind written evidence about themselves and their identity strategies. A notable exception to this rule is the book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. This book documents an intense and enduring attempt at reconstructing the identity of a dislocated group of people. The book of Ezekiel is produced by a group that constructed a diaspora identity from the early sixth century onwards, whether in Babylonia or in Jerusalem; in any case, it is written in an environment where the adaptation of a wide array of Mesopotamian linguistic, iconographic, literary, and theological motifs was possible. Wherever and whenever the book of Ezekiel was produced, it presents itself as a document of an explicit identity strategy of a minority group, unique among written sources from any part of Mesopotamia. It can be read as an example of the survival strategy of a group that distinguishes itself from others by way of self-reidentification. The book does not reflect a stable and universally shared identity of the Judeans. On the contrary, it creates and constructs an inner-Judean antagonism between Ezekiel’s in-group and the delegitimized out-group. The book of Ezekiel, therefore, does not convey much about the integration of the Judean minority into Babylonian society but all the more about conflicts among Judeans themselves.