Klaus-Peter Adam

Rebuilding a Post-exilic Community

Biblical Studies & Commentaries

“C. Phaipi sheds new light on alterity discourses in Second Temple Judaism. Through her culturally sensitive and textually informed reading she reconstructs the ways in which alterity in Ezra 1-6 and 9-10 became specifically essential to the identity of the exiles (golah). She aptly scrutinizes the processes of stigmatization of cultural and religious alterity. This nuanced reading uncovers in a fresh way the mesmerizing dynamic of Second Temple Jewish leadership to claim their religious and ethnic identity. Its profound analyses also contribute to discourses of exclusion of alterity today and on the processes in which religious and cultural alterity discourses shape contemporary culture.”