Landless Citizenship. Reflection on the Margins of Biblical Israel

In this paper I articulate a response to the question of Mediterranean citizenship through the story of the biblical Israel: a group of belonging to the same lineage that moves from immigration to hospitality and then to slavery, forced to flee a land not their own and lacking a form of government. The only element that transforms these fleeing slaves into a people is faith in their God. Using an inappropriate term for the time, citizenship as Israel's political, cultural, and religious identity is built through faith and relationship with the liberating God. From this same seed, Christianity and Islam would later be born as well, which, from the Mediterranean, would spread throughout the world. In constituting itself as "God's people", Israel inherits the promise of a land made to Abraham, but not its possession. In telling this story, the biblical authors answer the question of what makes Israel a people. The category of citizenship, applied retrospectively, highlights how members of the people are part of an association among equals who tend to God and are called to cooperate in this common direction, that is, to be faithful to him.