An Agenda of Future Jewish Thought

Abstract

Post-colonial studies in Biblical Studies have their roots in Liberation Theology with strong roots in Latin America. In a rare allusion to the sixteenth century Spanish empire, Mark Brett seizes on pieces that conform to scholarly edifices of the Bible and Empire that have already been established. The author explains that as the Telegraph Bible, by which he means a Bible that was on message and that could be reduced to a few precise gestures; and a Bible that was structured by a few simple coercive contrasts like the dot-dash binary of Morse Code. The biblical storehouse of memory models what Jan Assmann calls the 'decadence' of writing. The chapter focuses on the strategic manipulation of conflicting biblical traditions of 'the land'. It compares Sahagun's bleak parable of the sower and figures of a God-deserted wasteland with systems of evangelical husbandry in the nineteenth century British Empire. Keywords: conflicting biblical traditions; God-deserted wasteland; liberation theology; Mark Brett; Morse Code; nineteenth century British Empire; Sahagun; sixteenth century Spanish empire; Telegraph Bible