Abstract: | ABSTRACT Taking my point of departure in questions of ethnogenesis within the regions of Yehud and Idumea in the pre-Hasmonean period, I analyze the interrelationship of the themes of conflict and reconciliation in the composition of Genesis. I pay particular attention to perceptions of Idumea in narrative reiterations which tie the Cain story to the narratives about the destruction of Sodom and the Jacob-Esau conflict story in order to raise the question of whether the narrative strategy reflected in these stories might justify a further analysis of the Jacob and Joseph stories as contributions to a larger mnemonic discourse, bearing a utopian trajectory aimed at a realization of Ezekiel 16's reconciliation between Idumea, Yehud and Samaria. |