Biblica_2:Layout 1 21-11-2011 13:02 Pagina 438 438 KOOG P. HONG tunity arose after the fall of the Northern Kingdom, Judeans could entertain the possibility of taking over that prestigious position of Israel. In order to justify their right to the assumption, Judeans placed Abraham, the ancestor of the southern tribes based on Hebron, in the higher place in the new Israelite genealogy. Now, without wiping out, or forgetting, the memory of Jacob, Judeans could find a way to redefine their identity: not only through Jacob’s lineage but also through the founding role now bestowed on Abraham. In this regard, Abraham’s foundational placement in the Israelite genealogy may reflect the Judean desire to buttress their right to take over the position of Israel. To be sure, to redefine a nation’s identity is not a simple task 42. It may very well confront resistance, both from the outside and inside. For instance, the memory of the long-standing inferiority to the Northern Kingdom was not something that could be dismissed so easily. So many Judeans continued to remember Jacob as their father 43, that is, together with Abraham. This perhaps means that the Judeans’ program was not directed against Jacob’s role as the progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel but specifically against the founding role once bestowed on him. Without stripping the still important role from Jacob, now Abraham takes over the founding place as the first father of Israel. He thus takes the first space of what later becomes the triad of the Israelite ancestry, “Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”. Dtr uses a similar strategy. David’s founding role as the model king of the united monarchy is highlighted, though without denying Judah’s minor position during the subsequent era. Then David’s kingdom, remembered as an idyllic memory of the distant past, served well as the basis for the 42 This redefinition may have required an enlightenment of a sort, which could happen slowly in the people’s mind. To this, prophets like Isaiah appear to have contributed significantly, as seen in his interpretation of YHWH’s delivery of Jerusalem from Sennacherib’s threat (Isa 37) and his subsequent promotion of the idea of YHWH’s choice of Jerusalem and the new role of Judah in this new era. Slowly yet steadily, through a debate among diverging ideas and suggestions by varying participants (such as prophets, priests, and scribes), the Judeans finally came to be convinced that they were meant to take over the Israelite heritage. 43 In fact, Judeans did not have to forget this rich tradition, which is now without its owner. With a successful program of promoting Judah as the new Israel, Judah in fact could assume and take advantage of all the Jacob tradition as our tradition (because we=Israel). In doing so, Jacob’s genealogy, once a dramatic device to emphasize the eventual birth of the beloved son, Joseph, transforms into a legitimation of Judah’s right as a practical first-born of Jacob — in the particular way in which Judeans appropriated this genealogy. Although Judah is the fourth son of Jacob, all three sons born ahead of him, Reuben, Simeon, and Levi, are somehow dismissed as legitimate heirs of Jacob. See Gen 35,22 and Gen 34. Such a dismissal becomes clearer in the later Priestly text in Gen 49,3-4.5-7.