The same biblical imagery powered both European nationalism and colonial expansion

Evidence

This provenance casts the entire question of “nationalism and religion” in a different light. Concentrating on the Bible demonstrates the historical relationship between nationalism and colonialism, and between nation and empire, for all of these developed concomitantly on the basis of the same theological platform, with the same biblical imagery and justification. Parallel to its development as a source of nationalism in Europe, the Old Testament was instrumental in the justification of colonial expansion and colonial rule, and accordingly had a crucial role in the construction of settler-colonial settlement projects (Ilany 2012). The biblical consciousness, especially the notion of the chosen people, gave rise to the idea of national exceptionalism and at the same time to an absolute confidence of the superiority of the West. It served to justify the Occident’s rule outside of Europe and the subjugation of other nations. Conquerors described their deeds as the conquest of Canaan by Joshua, and white Christian settlers imagined themselves in terms of the ancient Hebrew community, at the periods of Judges and the Kings. On the other hand, also the objection to these deeds was framed in biblical terms, emphasizing the cruelty of Joshua and the Israelites. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 330

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s research question on sacralized conflict: chosen-people/national-exceptionalism doctrine is a religious template that manufactures superiority and justifies subjugation — the solidarity/legitimacy mechanism at work. — connects to: Protestant reinterpreted biblical concepts seeded modern nationalism — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 330; Modern European colonial ideology has medieval Christian origins — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1378; The Bible and Classics served Europeans as cognitive maps for new lands — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 315
• SEED: Angles: ‘the biblical root of settler-colonial self-imagining’ — how the Canaan-conquest frame recurs in settler projects from New England to Palestine; the symmetry of critics also framing objection biblically.
• DEFINE: Establishes biblical consciousness as a shared theological platform linking nationalism, empire, and colonialism — a defining conceptual frame for the whole volume.
• DEEPTHINKING: This reframes the standard ‘secular nationalism vs religion’ debate by showing nation and empire arose on one theological platform, making the secular-colonialist self-image an ideological distortion — a genuinely structure-shifting claim, well above a solid nonfiction point.

Broader Connections

• Protestant reinterpreted biblical concepts seeded modern nationalism #corroborates (0.85) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 330
• Modern European colonial ideology has medieval Christian origins #corroborates (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1378
• The Bible and Classics served Europeans as cognitive maps for new lands #expands (0.78) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 315