2 research outputs found
COLONIAL EDUCATION AND CLASS FORMATION IN EARLY JUDAISM: A POSTCOLONIAL READING
No full textIt is a delight to have the opportunity to thank the people who have helped me with the writing of this dissertation. Right from beginning to the completion of this study, Prof. Leo Perdue, my dissertation advisor and my guru persevered with me, giving apt guidance and judicious criticism at every stage. He encouraged me to formulate my own questions, map out my own quest, and seek the answers that would help me understand and contextualize my beliefs, practices, and identity. My profuse thanks to him. I also wish to thank Prof. David Balch and Prof. Carolyn Osiek, my readers, for their invaluable comments and scholarly suggestions to make this study a success. I am fortunate to receive the wholehearted support and encouragement of Bishop George Isaac in this endeavor, and I am filled with gratitude to him. With deep sense of gratitude, I want to acknowledge the inestimable help and generous support of my friends from the Grace Presbytery of PC(USA), who helped me to complete my studies in the United States. In particular, I wish to thank Rev. David Wasserman, Rev. Jeff Finch, Dr. William J. Carl III, Carol and Bob Adcock, and Peggy and Tommy Wadley. Without their constant encouragement, generosity of spirit, and ready willingness to help, my stay and studies in this country would not have been as smooth or as pleasant. v I want to thank many others from the various aspects of my life for their participation, support, and encouragement during the writing of this dissertation. Dr
Colonial education and class formation in early Judaism: a postcolonial reading
No full textThe colonizers invaded the peoples and nations not only politically and economically but also culturally and emotionally. The tools of this invasion and the continuing domination over the colonized were not only militaristic and economic; they also included the developing of a stratified class structure, in which the colonized were judged in terms of their degrees of usefulness to the empire. Throughout the history of colonization, colonizers used education as one of the major devices to propagate their cultural values, ethos, and lifestyle among the colonized. The primary aim of the colonial education program was to create a separate class of people who were not only meek and suppliant in its attitude towards the colonizers, but also felt a degree of loathing for its fellow citizens. This class was formed mainly to establish an effective imperial administration and channel of communication between the colonizers and the millions those whom they governed.^Taking the colonial education system as one of the major analytical categories, this dissertation makes an inquiry into how colonialism functioned and continues to function in both the ancient and the modern world.By analyzing the role of the Greek gymnasium in Jerusalem, as mentioned in the books of Maccabees, from a postcolonial perspective, this study establishes a constitutive relationship between the colonial education and the formation of a hierarchical class structure among the colonized. More concretely, this study attends to the transition from the traditional Jewish educational system to the establishment of Greek gymnasium.^On the basis of the study of several texts--Ben Sira, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, and early rabbinic literature--the investigation seeks to determine how the institution of the gymnasium was used to educate the elites and enable Greek citizens, Hellenes, and Hellenistic Jews to function politically, ethnically, and economically within the larger Greek empire and particularly in Judea, by creating a separate class of the "Hellenized Jews" among the Jewish population.The dissertation reveals the continuity of the role of the colonial education system in the formation of a class structure among the colonized by exploring a similar historical incident from the modern period, the British colonial era in India and demonstrates how the British education introduced into colonial India in the early nineteenth century played a similar role in creating a distinct class of the "Brown Englishmen" among the Indians.^The present study not only examines similarities and differences between the Hellenistic education program in Israel and the British colonial education system in India, but it also demonstrates how postcolonial historiography provides insight into the policies of cultural infusion adopted by Hellenistic empires. In particular, the study of the expansion of Greek education in Hellenistic empires offers valuable insight into the cultural and political role of colonial education in modern forms of colonialism
