Decolonising the study of ancient Israel: An autoethnography of rewriting a Hebrew Bible curriculum
One of the challenges in teaching courses on the history of ancient Israel is that the subject carries real-world consequences beyond both the academy and the church. This stems from the fact that the historiography of Israel or Palestine has consistently functioned as a political act. From the outset, biblical and epigraphic sources construct narratives of ancient Israel that assert claims to the land and establish connections to its people. This historiographical project persists unabated whenever the history of Israel is retold Early Christians asserted that they were the true heirs of Israel, a claim echoed by certain rabbis. Israel, or at least Jerusalem and its past, was subsequently appropriated within Muslim historiography. The crusades, together with successive empires from the medieval period into modernity, likewise participated in this ongoing contest to claim ownership of Israel’s past. As recent events demonstrate, the contest over rightful possession of the land and its history remains highly relevant today. This paper presents an autoethnographic account of my efforts to examine how courses on Israel’s history both participate in such claims and how I have sought to introduce critical interrogation of them into my teaching. In doing so, the chapter frames Israel’s past as an archive requiring sustained critique.
Publisert i 2025
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