Colonialism and the OT

This week, you are reading passages from Numbers and Deuteronomy. Write a creative and cohesive analytical essay, using the following questions about the biblical texts and the assigned GPB essays to direct you: Explain how Roland Boer addresses the “point of view” from which the story is told. (Comment on Boer’s connection of Numbers 22 to the situation in Australia.) What new insights does it bring to the biblical text? Are there problems with making such a connection? In what ways do Boer and Havea take a similar approach—on what issue do they focus? Is there a comparable issue in your particular historical or cultural context? In what sense does Boer respond to Havea’s final questions? What are some possible answers to the questions that Havea asks in his second paragraph? Are there other questions you would add to the list? How do Boer and Havea see the text as “seductive” or using a “clever ploy”? Would you say you have been tricked by the ploy (i.e., fooled by the point of view)? In what ways are Song-Chong Lee and Santiago Slabodsky’s readings of Deuteronomy similar to and different from one another? Do you detect similarities between their approaches and those of Boer and Havea? Compare and contrast the cultural and religious dynamics at work in Lee’s and Slabodsky’s context. How is their focus different from one another? (Comment on the fact that it was a U.S.-backed military government that took power in Argentina and that the Masorti leader who organized resistance was an American-born rabbi.) How do the political sphere and the religious sphere intersect with one another in these four pieces (particularly those by Lee and Slabodsky)?