I'm doing a good bit of thinking lately about decolonisation and also about the Hebrew scriptures -among which is how to understand and take as scripture some of the horrific genocidal and ostensibly settler-colonial narratives. So this book got my interest. The commending blurb said, among other things:
Undoing Conquest offers ways to incorporate archeological research into the life of the church to repair the harms of settler-colonialism and genocide, creating a more just future. Undoing Conquest interprets this new archeological research from feminist and decolonial theological perspectives and designs a new liturgical season, the Season of Origins. This season integrates archeological histories and centers justice work at the heart of the church’s annual rhythms.
... and that seemed to address my interests as stated above.
I liked that it starts with a consideration of how the Christian social imaginary (and that term is explained) has at different times developed and how new discoveries and challenges affect what can be imagined. Noting that there is a kind of Overton Window (not a term used in the book -that's my analogy) whereby what is imaginible and usable by Christian disciples and publics needs to move by increments referring to what is already known or believed and not by complete breaks with the past. This is a smart move when trying to present and evaluate what new understandings of biblical origins are and how they might be assimilated. It was intriguing to learn of how the book The Tribes of Yahweh had played a part in liberation movements of the late 20th century, so it seems important to understand what the scholarship behind that book might offer to the wider Christian movement.
Of course, the elephant in the room for Judaism and Christianity when reflecting on Joshua 1-11 is genocide and the challenge of that elephant is how to handle it while still acknowledging the writings as Scripture. It's a more general question, but that part of the Hebrew Bible perhaps is paradigmatic in this respect. There is an issue for many more conservative users of the bible about how to think about scripture if/when some results of archaeological and historical research seem to show that things that had been considered more-or-less reliable history begin to look like just-so stories or quasi-mythological tales of origins. Is this in principle different from re-reading Genesis 1 in the way that Richard Middleton presents in The Liberating Image ? The big question for me is how to hear or read these stories as scripture in our context with our understandings of the world? Does reading them as in some way divinely inspired mean that we can receive them as other than historically accurate?
In this case, we are reminded that the archaeology appears to contradict the idea of a Conquest as a first-sight reading might lead the reader to imagine. We are invited rather to consider that these stories recount things "in ways that aim to shape culture and contribute to a shared sense of identity".
I found it helpful to be able to read a really well written overview of the the results of archaeology and reflection on it over the last century or so -much of which I only had a vague inkling of (because until recently, I was not as interesting the Hebrew scriptures as I am now).
There is a sketch in the penultimate chapter of how we might story for ourselves an archaeologically fair narrative which also allows us to take hold of the Exodus story in scripture. This is worth reflecting on -along with the call to find ways to bring this into popular Christian imagination. I think that this will be a tough job with the so-called Christian Nationalist crowd! That said, I'd want to see a bit more scaffolding to help more conservative readers to be able to rethink their own a priori understandings of what scripture is and how it 'works' in devotional and theological reflection. There are some pointers here, but it is not a strong thread.
I enjoyed the idea of having a liturgical season of origins to engender a liturgical and thus whole-church pedagogy. There's a reasonably detailed proposal for a Season of Origins. I'm taking it seriously as something to incorporate into my own Our Common Prayer in Climate Emergency liturgical collection. I felt that the proposal, though, needs to pay more attention to how such perspectives are made liturgical. Do it badly and the questions and skepticisms of the congregation will actually be counter-productive. (I'm reminded of the putative Josianic story that the book outlines -which succeeds, humanly speaking, because of it's political backing and the moment of history in which it is introduced). I suspect the idea of trying to give what might be seen as official credence to 'rejected' or 'dispreferred' texts of the past (non-canonical gospels etc), is not going to fly widely in the Christian world. I'd love to see a wider conversation about the idea, though, of a season such as this.
I'm also concerned because at the moment a lot of Christians are trying to encourage churches to adopt a 'new' Season of Creation. Another new season might be a bit hard to add to the pile of innovation -even though I've kind of been doing it myself with a season of Transfiguration in Our Common Prayer liturgies. The proposal is to situate the Origins season after Creationtide, in effect. -Though the existence of Creationtide is clearly not known by the author. So I'd want to invite a longer and wider conversation about how we're shaping the autumn Kalendar -I'd also want to discuss whether we should reconsider Advent and November (Kingdomtide) in terms of the foci of these seasons. That said, 'Origintide' after Creationtide seems a good fit -and then a contrast with the themes of death and decay that comes prominently in early November (Kingdomtide). Certainly the shape proposed for Origintide invites it to have a pentitential thread running through it which would be suitable since that thread has become so hard to maintain in Advent because of the wider societal context in which it falls. This means that in the northern hemisphere, the lengthening nights of encroaching winter would be mirrored in considering the darkness in the moral world and our complicity in it.
While I was reading I found myself cross- referencing with the tales of Robin Hood and King Arthur -the former is briefly mentioned towards the end of the book. But it is worth considering how these stories originated (in as far as we know or suppose) and how they have at various points been picked up and reworked or elucidated with various ideological spins in them. This could help us to think about the stories of Exodus and Joshua before they become crystallised as scripture. -So that's another bit of further research for me!
In short, I have found this very intriguing and enlightening. What's more it is not a lengthy tome and while there are very thorough footnotes, it is not an especially academic dense text. I'd be pretty confident to put it into the hands of a reasonably educated non-specialist. There were some things being said which were repeated at times -but I guess that helps make for secure cross-referencing of materials in the book for some readers.
One of the things that this has done for me is make me want to dig into (pun intended) the archaeological findings and reflection on them. It's also got me wondering how this can inform and how it affects my own research on the way that The Powers and Principalities show up in Hebrew scriptures -given that I've been developing, in effect, a kind of corporisations narrative.
Kate Common’s Website
Undoing Conquest on Bookshop #UndoingConquest
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/i7u2ix4en0xb2l6kxrr93/ANcouHIrfzj7Ky6D7ucIsIw?rlkey=6l38lsatqxnv8iwp48kmkbyt0&e=1&dl=0
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