Review of Uriah Y. Kim, Decolonizing Josiah: Toward a Postcolonial Reading of the Deuteronomistic History

This book is a revision of Uriah Y. Kim’s dissertation written at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkley, Robert Coote being on the committee. Kim’s book is a fascinating, postmodern and postcolonial reading of 2 Kgs 22-23 (Josiah account) as part of the DH. In a nutshell, Kim’s argument is twofold: the biblical historian’s social and political identity is directly connected to his/her historiography, and scholars need to provide interpretations that liberate rather than oppress; biblical readings need to be committed ones. In other words, all historiography is ideological, but one can find ways to mitigate it. Kim shows how Martin Noth, the author of the DH theory, casts the Dtr in his own image. Noth, the historian, strikingly resembles Dtr, the historian. Noth anachronistically believed that the Dtr was an objective historian who carefully used sources to compose a history for the Israelite nation. He also advocated that the DH was the very first history ever written. These notions reflect Noth’s identity as German biblical scholar and Western modernist. The Cross school (Harvard) takes a similar position. Kim argues that Josiah’s kingdom was not a nation in the modern sense, whose citizens automatically become homogenized into a single entity. Kim also believes that the Dtr’s account of the reign of Josiah was just as ideological. Josiah is cast in the role of a new David, who expands Israelite territory to its furthest. Josiah intends to reunite both Judah and Israel as the new Israel. Judah occupies what can be called a liminal space. They are subjugated by the Assyrians, yet they have their own identity in opposition to them. The DH is meant to provide a ‘history of their own’ for Josiah and the Judeans in resistance to the hegemony of Assyria. But what about the North Israelites? Are they a mixed-breed? Are they foreigners? Is their land empty? Who will write for them ‘a history of their own’? Kim believes that his status as a liminal Asian-American especially qualifies him to write such a history for the North Israelites. His methodology essentially is the use of postmodern and BOOK REVIEWS