Drawing on the work of archaeologist Lori Khatchadourian, the article examines four categories of objects in the book of Daniel: delegates, proxies, captives, and affiliates. The book portrays the material artifacts and conditions of empire as evidence of empires contingency while advancing the artifact of the (Judean) written text not only as affiliate but as a delegate of divine power. Scrolls take on added significance in relation to the captive status of other sacred objects portrayed in the book. A key to the books strategy is the portrayal of imperial delegates as in fact proxies which neither represent, enact, nor confer lasting power. This portrayal raises an anxiety to assert that the scrolls portrayed in the book are not themselves proxies but in fact delegates (authoritative, true, efficacious). This analysis expands a prior focus on the agency of human actors in the phenomenon of resistance to include the agency of material objects, including the scroll/book of Daniel itself, in relation to the books strategies and functions as literature of resistance.
1 Maccabees was written to justify the rise to power of a family of usurpers. The primary target of the work is the domestic rivals, who are portrayed as lawless men, while the Maccabean brothers are presented as leaders of the whole people. In contrast, 1 Maccabees is not hostile to the foreign imperial kings per se. On the contrary, the kings are a primary source of legitimacy alongside biblical models, and the ideology shaping the discourse of the work combines Hellenistic elements and adapted biblical narratives. Reading 1 Maccabees as a work of resistance literature is a modern projection of an ideology typical of the nation- state and the nationalism associated with it.
Regarding the accusation found in the centerpiece of the book of Amos, the concentrically arranged composition of 5:1-17, it has been rightly stated that the divine anger proclaimed by Amos which eventually brought about the downfall of the kingdom of Israel was provoked by purposeful corruption of the legal system and exploitative economic arrangements facilitated by it. Furthermore, the perpetrators are not to be sought among the urban elite in the capital of Samaria alone, as one might surmise from the oracles preceding and following the composition in 3:9-11; 3:12; 4:1-3 and 6:1-7. Neither is the accusation aimed at the royal apparatus of power. Rather, the communal life all over the country is in view. Accordingly, at the end of the day, the legal system and its maintenance by the citizens is the decisive factor for the fate of the kingdom. Proceeding from the assumption that said composition and the ultimate warning it entails were crafted during the last decade of the kingdom of Israel, after the first Assyrian invasion 733 BCE but before the second, this particular orientation is scrutinized in view of the question whether resistance proves a useful category in Amos.
This article gives an overview over the possibilities of non- violent resistance by women of different social status, as reflected in the literature of the Hebrew Bible. Following this, Exod 1:15-22 will be analysed as a case study, an exemplary text in which Shiphrah and Puah, two midwives, resist a pharaoh in a non- violent and highly effective manner.
