Chapter 19 United yet Divided Reading Judah and Israel in the Context of Two Koreas Koog P. Hong The people of Korea boast more than a thousand years of unity, but they have been severed to become part of two hostile independent political entities. However, the political split has not yet entirely erased a sense of ethnic unity. Te sense of tragedy inherent in this ongoing political standof ofers South Korean biblical scholars a unique viewpoint to ap- proach Israelite history, which features its own north-south division—that of Judah and Israel. Informed by the Korean context, this chapter stresses the duality in Judah’s relations with Israel: one, an ideal; the other, reality. Too ofen biblical scholars assume “oneness” as a default framework for addressing vexed north-south relations, but it is critical to distin- guish the ideal of unity from the reality of division. Arguably, the biblical presentation of one Israel is a Judean invention that reveals more of the desire for Judah’s supremacy than the reality of a divided people. To be sure, facing historical facts is challenging. It means acknowledging the dual nature of their relations, questioning how their mutual under- standing changed over time, discerning the trajectory of that change, weighing what it meant to carry a dual identity in realpolitik, and identifying the more salient parts of this duality. Competing conceptions of Israel in biblical literature is not a problem but rather the very proof of the ambivalent nature of Judah’s relations with Israel—a brother and an enemy at the same time. Tis chapter does not look for practical lessons from biblical his- tory to resolve the current political confict in Korea. 1 Instead, it fnds sensibility in facing ambiguous relations to better navigate a complex identity struggle. Two Conceptions of Israel Two diferent conceptions of “Israel” coexist in the Bible. As a whole, the biblical literature presents “Israel” as “one people.” “Israel” is descended from common OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Oct 04 2021, NEWGEN C19 C19.P1 C19.S1 C19.P2 Toxfordhb-9780190916916.indd 304 Toxfordhb-9780190916916.indd 304 04-Oct-21 14:15:31 04-Oct-21 14:15:31