Belief in YHWH as Identity Marker in Pre-exilic Israel: An Identity-Oriented Reading of Deuteronomy 13

This article outlines an identity-oriented reading of the so-called “apostasy series” (Deut 13) to explore the modes of articulation and construction of collective identity in pre-exilic Israel. Heuristically, the article integrates assumptions of the social constructionist approach and some points of Jan Assmann’s model of “secondary religion”. The reading of Deut 13 in this article highlights, on the one hand, how religious belief functions as a marker of collective identity in Deut 13, and on the other, how identity construction depends on inner social articulations within Israel rather than on subversive political or theological claims against the Assyrian power. Ultimately, Deut 13 frames the shaping of a self-articulation within Israel, which may be expressed as follows: belief in YHWH as an identity marker allows the Israelite community to distance itself from one of its parts to define what Israel is and what it is not. The real tension felt in the passage is between a plural community and a collective that attempts to standardise plurality to define itself, that is, a tension between a real Israel and an ideal Israel, between the layers of historical reality and the normative abstractions that attempt to control them.