ABSTRACT
The following chapter examines the complex relationship between the settlers movement in Israel and the Biblical text. The attitude to the Bible is a seismograph for scrutinizing the attitude of Zionism, in general, and that of the settlers, in particular, to their ideological and political worldview. In this chapter I will mainly address the radical theological facets of the settler movement, not the proponents of Greater Israel. The chapter will focus on the replication of settler theology from the first stage of Gush Emunim (The Bloc of the Faithful) and the act of settlement, which in the opinion of the settlers is in accord with the continuation and completion of the Zionist project, to a more metaphysical phase, in which the centrality of the act of settlement gives way to Hassidic or Kabbalistic thinking. The models which I present make possible a fresh look at the utopian thinking and radical theology that are nourished by the settler movement and reflect a new, non?homogeneous stage.
