Biblical Jew depiction was a primary early arena for orientalist Othering

Evidence

The matter is of much more than antiquarian interest. The portrayal of biblical Israelites was not a marginal aspect of the orientalist imagination. On the contrary, it was a major arena where the nature of the Western image of the East as a radically different Other, opposed to the West, was first disclosed. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 157

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: the Bible-as-Orient thesis — how the very source text of Western civilization supplied the template for imagining the East as radically Other, centuries before colonial orientalism formalized.
• XREF: Directly challenges the standard origin story that orientalism begins with Napoleon/modern colonialism; reframes Europe’s first Other as its own scriptural ancestor. — connects to: Jews uniquely contrasted civilization both downward to nature and upward to spirit. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1431