Rereading the Bible in the Wake of Colonisation

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Introduction - Emily Colgan, Brian Fiu Kolia, and Michael Mawson

PART I: Conquered Lands

1.     Salvation through Colonization: Abuses of the Bible on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Lands – Naomi Wolfe

2.     The Reinvention of Waste Land in Colonial Victoria – Mark G. Brett

3.     Be Fruitful and Multiply, Reclassify the Earth, and Dispossess It: The Political Utility of Genesis 1:28 in Colonial New Zealand – Andrew Picard

4.     The Historical Jesus on Unceded Land – Robert Myles

5.     The Right to Inherit Family Property and Land: A Sülimi (Sümi Woman) Reading of Numbers 27 - Jekheli Kibami Singh

6.     “Are We All in the Same Storm?” Noah’s Ark and the Politics of Boarding in Our Times - Emily Colgan and George Zachariah

PART II: Subdued Languages

7.     acClimatize (the) Lectionaries: An Invitation from Pasifika - Jione Havea

8.     Ordering Nature: Theology, Taxonomy, and Imperialism in the Pacific - Michael Mawson

9.     “One People, One Language”? Genesis 11:6, Theopoetics, and Urban Birdsong - Ruth Wivell

10.  Ngā Waiata: Savage Interpretations: Robert Maunsell’s Translation of the Psalms - Emily Colgan, Andrew Picard, and Te Aroha Rountree

PART III: Colonised Bodies

11.  Auē le Mea Uli! Racism Crossing the Moana? - Brian Kolia

12.  I te Tīmatanga/ In the Beginning: An Intertextual Reading of Hine Tītama and Eve - Te Aroha Rountree and Emily Colgan

13.  Our Tūpuna Knew That God Created Takatāpui: A Critical Reading of Genesis 1:26–28 - Paul Reynolds

14.  Between Utopianism and Futurism: Unsettling Utopic Aspirations in Chronicles with nor’s “The End” through Indigenous Futurism - Stephen Lim

Index

Biography

Emily Colgan is from Aotearoa New Zealand. She lives in Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), under the shadow of Ōhinerua maunga (mountain) where Ngāti Whātua-o-Ōrākei are mana whenua (the tribal authority). She is acting principal and Ranston Lecturer in Biblical Studies (Hebrew Bible) at Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. She is the author of Jeremiah: An Earth Bible Commentary (forthcoming) and co-editor of the multi-volume work, Rape Culture, Gender Violence, and Religion (2018).

Brian Kolia is a lecturer in Old Testament studies at Malua Theological College and an ordained minister of the Congregational Christian Church, Samoa. He is an Australian-born Samoan whose roots go back to the villages of Sili Savaii and Satapuala. He holds a PhD from the University of Divinity and is author of Carrying Qoheleth’s Maota (House): An Australian-Samoan Diasporic Reading (2024).

Michael Mawson is a Pākehā (white) theologian who lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa New Zealand. He is the Maclaurin Goodfellow Associate Professor of Theological and Religious Studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau/ the University of Auckland, and also a research fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa. His recent books include Standing Under the Cross: Essays on Bonhoeffer’s Theology (2023) and Unsettling Theologies: Memory, Identity and Place, co-edited with Brian Kolia (2024).