| Recently, feminist critics have focused attention on characters in biblical narrative who are "other" than the "main" characters upon whom attention has traditionally focused; literary (narrative) critics have elucidated key issues in the study of biblical narrative ambiguity, particularly the criteria for resolving such ambiguities; and historians studying biblical narratives have de-emphasized attempts to reconstruct events narrated therein, in favor of attempts to reconstruct the original social function of those books as such. This study participates in each of these trends by examining the social role in Yehud of ambiguities in the portrayals of the "diselect" characters Lot, Ishmael, Esau, and Laban in Genesis 12--36.;Lot, Ishmael, Esau, and Laban each experience a process of differentiation and separation from one of the "main characters" in Genesis 12--36, namely Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In the case of Lot, Ishmael, and Esau, this process may be described as "diselection" because exclusion from God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants is consequent to each character's separation from his "elect" counterpart. At the same time, a thorough examination reveals that the narrator's portrayal of each of these characters is deeply ambiguous. From minute lexical and syntactic ambiguities to omissions of pertinent information, the narrator leaves many aspects of these characters open to readers' judgments.;The book of Genesis has been seen as a Yehudian attempt to define the boundaries of "Israelite" ethnicity under Achaemenid auspices. Extending such analyses, this study suggests that ambiguities in the portrayals of the diselect characters in Genesis provide robustness and flexibility to an exclusivist ethnic identity construction vis-a-vis Yehud's immediate neighbors, but not its more distant Mesopotamian neighbors. The portrayals allow a range of evaluations from very negative to very positive. While negative evaluations of these characters might be deployed to justify their diselection, positive evaluations of these characters do not convincingly de-justify their diselection. The narrator's use of irresolvable ambiguities gives readers maximum flexibility in character evaluation but minimum flexibility in reconstructing their dis/election. This serves Achaemenid imperial administrative goals by promoting ethnic distinctiveness in Yehud without necessarily inculcating antagonism between Yehud and neighboring provinces. |
