Dr. Sonia Wong

Although historical critics have noted that the literary production of the Hebrew Bible emerged largely from imperial contexts, the effects of imperialisms on the signifying activities of the biblical writers have not received due attention. This paper argues that postcolonial concepts (such as liminality, third space, ambivalence, hybridity, mimicry, and unhomeliness) may help historical critics to reconstruct the original signifying context of the biblical text by using the literary production of the Deuteronomistic (Hi)Story in the Persian empire as an example. I will illustrate with selective texts how the Deuteronomist signified against the Persian empire without naming it.

Dr. Sonia Wong, Website an der Chinese University of Hong Kong