Orientalist biblical scholarship treated living Palestinians as archives of the biblical past

Evidence

Renan followed typical nineteenth-century practice: he believed that the Orient today would reveal what the Orient had always been. This belief resulted logically from the proposition that at least some Arabs carried the unchanging, fossilized Semitic spirit that infused the contemporaries of Jesus. It mattered little that they were Arabs and not Jews; both were Semites and their differences today were at any rate conceived of largely as due to the degenerative influences of postbiblical history, with the Jews much more “corrupted” in this sense, according to Renan, than the pure Bedouin. On this premise, to a person interested in biblical history the Palestinians were an archive in flesh and blood, and Renan made a personal voyage to the Orient. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 193 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In addition to the study of this particular branch of the Arabic language, the expedition was to seek out manuscripts (especially of the Bible), survey the topography, enquire into the effects of polygamy on population growth, and record the vegetation and wildlife. Michaelis was particularly keen to receive data that would help in identifying the flora and fauna of the Bible. He also thought that the contemporary Arabs had a way of life similar to that of the ancient Hebrews. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 233 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Romanticizing the Arab as ancient model masked Palestinian labor exclusion; Zionist views of Arabs reproduced Christian typological thinking; Early Zionism’s orientalism borrowed Christian supersessionist logic about Palestinian Arabs (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalists treated contemporary Palestinians as living fossils revealing biblical history #corroborates (0.98) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 193
• Expedition members treated living Arabs as evidence about ancient Hebrews #exemplifies (0.92) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 233