Abstract
Beginning with my personal experience of encountering ideas about decolonization in various settings, and considering what it might mean for New Testament studies in Aotearoa New Zealand, this essay then presents the contributions of the few Māori scholars who have worked in biblical studies, identifying how they reflect on the legacies of colonization and the challenge of decolonization. As an example of a Māori engagement with a New Testament text, I present a reading of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus as presented in Matthew 15.21–28, focused on issues of racism, people, and land. Finally, the essay concludes with some proposals on what a decolonized New Testament studies would look like based on my experience as a Māori student and then lecturer.
The methodology that I have chosen for this article is that of mātauranga and wānanga. Mātauranga is Māori knowledge and ways of knowing; closely associated to this is wānanga, which is the transmission of knowledge from person to person and from generation to generation. When something new enters the Māori world, our immediate response is to create a wānanga to examine this new thing in detail with the questions, what is this new thing we are experiencing and what is our connection to it? The topic of decolonizing New Testament Studies is not a new subject; the goal of using a wānanga methodology is not to come up with answers but to explore the body of knowledge underlying decolonization and then to create discussion exploring our connections to it and what it requires of us in response.
Mention the word ‘decolonization’ and the response is usually two-fold: either alarm bells start ringing or strategies of resistance and non-engagement are immediately thought up. It can be emotive, uncomfortable, and a bewildering subject to engage with as each person’s values, beliefs, and practices are inevitably placed under the microscope for examination. From the other end of the spectrum, decolonization can elicit a response of eagerness and anticipation with a sense of hope that the scales of justice can become more balanced in favour of those who ended up on the wrong side of history.
I first heard the word ‘decolonization’ in 1990 as a youth delegate to the Runanga Whakawhanungatanga i ngā Haahi, the National Council of Māori Churches, which consisted of Anglican, Methodist, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian denominations. The leaders of the Runanga were giants of Māori theology like Rua Rakena, Hone Kaa, Rob Cooper, Kuni Jenkins, Te Hiko Riini, Mona Riini, Diana Tana, Millie Te Kaawa, and Paewhenua Nathan. At that stage, Māori sections of churches were still cultural silos without any real authority within their own respective churches. ‘Colonization’ and ‘decolonization’ were terms that regularly came up in our ecumenical discussions. The biblical text adopted for decolonization was Daniel 2.43: ‘e kore e piri te uku ki te rino, the clay will not stick to the iron’. Paired with this biblical verse was the seminal text Pedagogy of the Oppressed by the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire (Friere 1970). Words that were repeatedly used when engaging with the verse from Daniel and the Freire text when discussing colonization and decolonization were ‘liberation’, ‘education’, and ‘transformation’.
When I moved into the health sector to work in the early 1990s the term ‘decolonization’ was used specially for Māori and was like stripping away the layers of an onion as we went through the philosophy of colonization and the legislation that took away land, access to resources, language, customs, beliefs, and rights, laying down a pathway to extinction. The term for non-Māori was ‘Treaty of Waitangi awareness’. A solemn covenant agreement had been signed in 1840 between Māori leaders and the British Crown. The Crown representatives had reneged on this agreement and, through military might and deceit, had gained control of the country within one generation. Treaty awareness was making Pākehā face up to their responsibility of being a good Treaty partner one by one. Decolonization was an important aspect of cultural safety, which had become a compulsory requirement in nursing and required the health care professional to examine the relationship between the client and the professional providing the care.
When I moved into ministry training and studying towards a Bachelor of Theology, the words ‘colonization’ or ‘decolonization’ simply did not exist in the curriculum. When I moved into the Masters programme there was one class on the Treaty of Waitangi in a paper that looked at church history in Aotearoa New Zealand, but little else. Quite possibly, the absence of these words was because the word of God was considered to be above any sort of politicalization. As undergraduate and postgraduate students, the closest we came to decolonization was contextual theology or feminist theologies, which were still regarded with a great deal of suspicion. Certainly in biblical studies these words did not exist.
Since I moved into teaching theology in a University setting in the last five years, the word ‘decolonization’ is used more regularly in theology in Aotearoa New Zealand. No longer is it considered that decolonization is for Māori and everyone else studies Treaty of Waitangi awareness. The term is now used more broadly in its application, with the teacher, the student, God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and anything related to theology needing to go through a process of being decolonized. Central to the discourse around decolonization are issues of power and where power does or does not reside in a relationship.
Yet the challenge of decolonization remains in Aotearoa New Zealand. The symbols of colonization are seen in two ways. Firstly, in the very few Māori, Pacific, and other minority groups employed as tutors, lecturers, or professors in theology. Secondly, in the low number of enrolments of Māori, Pacific, and other minority groups in theology. Theology at Otago was established in 1946 but it took 36 years for a Māori to gain a Bachelor of Theology degree and 74 years for a Māori to gain a Lectureship. Of the 1,630 total number of theology graduates in its 75-year history, there have only been 34 Māori graduates, only 2% of the total. These facts and figures show that theology was never established for Māori in their own country and at best they were placed into the margins as outsiders in a European theological world. Decolonization assists Māori to escape the narrative that they have been written into, with assumptions and assertions like ‘Māori don’t enrol in theology’, ‘Māori are not good academic achievers’, or ‘Māori and Pacific students need extra assistance’. Decolonization is not about repackaging this discourse and representing it as a different kind of narrative but still maintaining the colonial values and intent. Colonization by any other name is still colonization.
Māori Perspectives on Decolonization
As I seek to develop a vision of what decolonizing New Testament studies might require, in this section, Māori theological voices will be introduced, specifically those (few) who have contributed to the field of biblical studies. 1 I have chosen Māori theologians as within the context of Aotearoa New Zealand they all have firsthand experience of what colonization looks and feels like and therefore a view of what decolonization consists of.
Rev. Dr Beverley Moana Hall-Smith of Te Rarawa and Ngāpuhi descent is the third Māori woman to gain a doctorate in theology and the first Māori person to specialize in biblical studies. In her writings, the issue of colonization is never far away. Writing from a Māori post-colonial feminist perspective, Hall-Smith explores the relationship between Jesus and the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15.21–28 through the lens of the Treaty of Waitangi (Hall-Smith 2009). Hall-Smith identifies the Canaanite woman with her own indigenous people of the Māori world. In this text, which is explored in more detail in the next section, the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew treats the Canaanite woman as a social inferior. The text points out one of the effects of colonization, in which different groups of colonized people are set against each other so that they do not unite to resist their common oppressor. In this case the common oppressor in the first century is Rome, which dominates both Canaanites and Jews, compared with 19th century imperial Britain in their subjugating of Māori. A post-colonial reading of this text by Hall-Smith concludes that the Canaanite woman claims her place at the table rather than waiting for crumbs to fall from the table.
In her doctorate Hall-Smith uses whakapapa (genealogy) as a hermeneutical tool to exegete one of the most difficult texts in the Bible, Judges 19–21 (Hall-Smith 2017). Hall-Smith identifies ‘reader-response’ as the appropriate approach for her research, exploring and explaining the place and significance of whakapapa. In determining her methodology and design based on whakapapa, the reader is introduced to whakapapa as a map to read the cultural and political landscape of the world. Drawing on kaupapa (purpose) Māori can assist the reader to understand the world within and behind the text.
What does colonization look like for Hall-Smith? In biblical hermeneutics, Hall-Smith identifies a colonizing agenda—in the message, the messenger, and the academy that are so deeply embedded within European supremacy. As she remarks: I realised that the Bible read by my ancestors was indeed a Western book, bound through the paths of translation to the European history of colonisation, subjugation and oppression. The teaching of biblical interpretation shaped by Western interpretative tools rather than a hermeneutic shaped by a Māori worldview is incapable of explaining the realities of inequality, oppression and exploitation experienced by Māori people (Hall-Smith 2017: 29).
Hall-Smith acknowledges her struggles in biblical studies at the University of Auckland. She realized that a Western model of exegetical exercises, analysing biblical material using the traditional hermeneutical tools and methods, did not resonate with her: I realised that traditional historical-critical analysis influenced by Western European values excluded any appreciation of non-Western hermeneutical approaches, including those of Māori oral traditions, postcolonial perspectives (Hall-Smith 2017: 10).
In the academy the Māori voice in biblical scholarship has been silent simply because that voice was not there. Hall-Smith’s doctoral thesis is a pioneering voice that shines a light into biblical scholarship.
What does decolonization then look like? Hall-Smith shares the struggle of completing her doctorate in biblical studies, describing her experience as a deep challenge in this journey of growing confidence and courage to stand as a Māori in front of the text. Colonisation has taught Māori that our stance is not good enough, that we must depend on the stand others have taken. In addition, to stand well in the academy as a Māori requires becoming fluent in two worlds and languages—Māori and Pakeha (European). In many ways this PhD required twice as much work as some (Hall-Smith 2017: 212).
Having the courage to stand in front of the text as a Māori and to use hermeneutical tools drawn from her own worldview to exegete the text is a powerful statement that shows her own people that the Bible can be read and interpreted through the lens of the Māori worldview. Hall-Smith, like many Māori writers, argues that the biblical text is a powerful rhetorical instrument of colonization. Historically the Bible has been weaponized against Māori, discouraging them from continuing their way of life, as it was unacceptable to both God and his church. Since using Māori values to read the Bible was presented as wrong, a consequence was that salvation was sought on European missionary terms.
My second example is the Most Rev. Donald Tamihere, an archbishop of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia. Tamihere completed his Master of Theology with a thesis that utilized mātauranga Māori as a hermeneutical tool. His Masters thesis Kua Oti Te Tuhituhi: Towards a Māori Exegesis of the Bible focussed on the practice of Māori interpretation within the discipline of biblical studies. His Masters was completed at a time when the dominant attitude in the academy was still one of resistance and suspicion towards mātauranga Māori. At the time, biblical studies dismissed anything Māori as being superficial and relegated out of theology to cultural studies.
What does colonization look like? For Tamihere, resistance from members of his faculty was experienced during his Masters. Using a mātauranga Māori methodology as a hermeneutical tool was not considered to be real biblical studies: ‘While I enjoyed being immersed in the study, having to contend with an abjectly colonial and imperialist academy, utterly dismissive of Māori intellectual traditions, was not a life-giving experience’ (Tamihere 2002: 16). This resistance made Tamihere appreciate what other Māori theological scholars in that academy were going through at the time.
What does decolonization look like? Since completing his Masters, Tamihere has been busy developing hermeneutical tools drawn from mātauranga Māori. One such model is the Rauru method which helps to make meaning and build understanding by weaving three plaits together called pānuitia (read the text), kōrerotia (discuss the text) and mahia (apply the text). Rauru is the name of an important ancestor and also a metaphor for weaving—an important concept in Pacific theology, which is the strand that Māori theology identifies with. Currently Tamihere is completing his doctoral research examining Genesis 49.1–50.14 from a hermeneutical framework that is drawn from Māori epistemologies. Decolonization of New Testament Studies likewise requires appreciating and including hermeneutical tools that exist outside of what is considered the normative western hermeneutics.
Finally, I introduce my own story, before the following section in which I present some of the engagement with New Testament material developed in my doctoral thesis. What does colonization look like? For me it is about silence and invisibility. In my doctorate I reflected on the experience of colonisation during my undergraduate days at the University of Otago studying theology from 1995: Being the sole Māori enrolled in many theological papers became a familiar experience. At times this became an unpleasant experience due to the invisibility of Māori staff, students and curriculum content. What I learned is that theology originated largely in Europe, and the principal languages used were Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German, French and English. Theology made its way past the equator turned left to northern and southern America, then took a right turn to Asia and then a sharp left to Africa. When Aotearoa New Zealand did rate a mention, it was Pākehā (European New Zealand) theology that was offered as Māori and the Pacific countries allegedly did not have sufficient breadth and depth in their native language or thought to hold a theological or philosophical conversation. This statement was made during a lecture in my first year of theology at Otago University (Te Kaawa 2020: 1).
Silence and invisibility remained in the post-graduate journey, where the requirement for a Master of Ministry was six papers. Of the six papers, one was a New Zealand church history paper, and one 50-minute class on the Treaty of Waitangi was offered in connection with it. When it came time for questions and discussion there was complete silence. I reflect on the consequences of this experience at the conclusion of the essay, but first I present some of the engagement with New Testament material in my doctoral thesis.
Christology and New Testament Interpretation Through a Māori Lens: People, Land, and God
The primary focus in my thesis is theological, specifically the aim of developing Christology from a Māori perspective. But this task is approached through close engagement with New Testament texts. Fundamental to a Māori Christology is genealogy, approached specifically through the lens of whakapapa, which ‘provides not just familial connections, but also connects us to the land and the stories and histories. Whakapapa is more than reciting names; it comes with connections and relationships between people and the land’ (Te Kaawa 2020: 86). This whakapapa perspective provides the basis for an analysis of the Matthean and Lukan genealogies, showing how these reveal connections among people, land, and God, and the importance of these for a Māori perspective—a set of connections presented visually through a Māori design (Te Kaawa 2020: 93–160).
These connections also come together in a reading of Jesus’s encounter with the Canaanite woman, as she is labelled in Matthew’s version of the story (Mt. 15.21–28; cf. Mk 7.24–30). 2 References to the land of Canaan, the people of the land, the Canaanites, and the seven nations who originally inhabited the land are rare in the NT: it does not preserve Canaanite memory. 3 Social and cultural memory retains and transmits the history of a group, telling important stories of people and events. The group that owns the land writes the history and determines who and what is remembered and how they are to be remembered. Canaanites, who were a major feature of the Old Testament, have mostly disappeared from the canonical Gospels. Matthew alone reclaims the Canaanite memory when he re-presents the Gentile woman of Syrophoenician origins from the Gospel of Mark as a Canaanite woman.
The narrative of the Canaanite woman and Jesus is a challenging passage to exegete. Published responses to this narrative tell us two things. Firstly, the story exposes the underbelly of Israel and the racist and dehumanizing treatment of the Canaanite people of the land. Secondly, in the contemporary context, it stirs deep emotions that make some readers of the text feel uncomfortable. The narrative draws the reader into the story and presents the reader with two options: respond to the racism within the text or be complicit with it. No longer can meaning be understood to be a stable determinate content that lies buried within the text; the meaning becomes a dynamic event in which we participate (Fowler 1991: 3). Engaging with the text, we are called on to declare where we stand on the issue of racism. The meaning of the story lies not within the text but in the dynamic relationship between reader and scripture (Segovia and Talbert 1995: 7–15).
Aotearoa New Zealand is still in recovery from the terrorist attack of 15th March 2019. On this fateful day, a lone gunman shot and killed fifty-one Muslim worshipers and critically wounded another fifty worshipers gathered in the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch. Since that day, signs, posters, and t-shirts have appeared with the slogan, give nothing to racism. 4 The narrative of the Canaanite woman and Jesus shouts those words with a loud voice.
The voice of the Canaanite woman crying out ‘Lord, help me’ is the voice of a distant memory of the past that has been subsumed into a new Gentile identity that tries to harmonize historical identities. This voice that will not be silenced makes the reader focus on the inherited injustices in the present context to which the reader has become deaf and blind. The Canaanite woman is a blind-spot in the life of Jesus that he does not see coming. She appears unexpectantly and successfully pleads for her request to be heard and not ignored or explained away.
Two examples of this text convicting people to stand up to racism come firstly from a European-American and secondly from a recovering white racist in Australia. After engaging with the narrative, Daniel Patte, a European-American, concluded that neither Jesus nor the woman is transformed; it is the reader who is convicted (Patte 2000). This narrative led Patte to speak with and read stories of borderless and border-crossing Mexican women in the United States. The narrative made him aware of his white privilege and social status in comparison to those living a marginal existence. Patte counters the view that the woman is modelling submissive discipleship, which he believes to be quite dangerous. This type of discipleship reflects the values of a hierarchical community that forces those who do not have access to the centre of power into being submissive disciples.
Matthew Anslow describes himself as a white Australian and recovering racist. Anslow grew up in a white enclave in Sydney and was dismayed to find that some of Australia’s worst race riots led by white supremacists took place in his neighbouring suburb in 2005 as they tried to reclaim ‘their beach’. Anslow still struggles with anti-racist sensibilities and finds that he has to be vigilant about any of his own casual prejudiced or racist thoughts. Eight years after the Cronulla Beach race riots, Anslow presented a paper to an Anabaptist conference suggesting that the narrative of Jesus and the Canaanite woman is a seminal text for ‘understanding the nature of their (white Australian) practices of exclusion in a multi-faith world’ (Anslow 2013). Anslow finds comfort in discovering in the narrative that, like him, even Jesus was forced to confront his prejudices and make space for others.
Among other examples of those who have taken inspiration from the Canaanite woman in her quest to attain wellness for her daughter, Native American scholars Robert Allen Warrior and William Baldridge enter into a brief written conversation concerning the narrative of Jesus and the Canaanite woman. 5 Warrior views the Bible as a contradiction that describes God as loving and then shows a violent side of this loving God, especially to people of the land whom he wants to exterminate. Warrior believes that the teaching point from the narrative is to show how unjust Christianity is towards indigenes. Like the Canaanite woman, Native Americans, he says, ‘must go begging to the people who colonized us in order to secure the bare minimum of justice’ (Warrior 1996: 102).
Like Warrior, Baldridge was ready to walk away from Christianity and shake the dust from his feet until he remembered the story of the Canaanite woman. Baldridge responds to Warrior that Jesus, who exhibits nationalist exclusivism against the Canaanite woman, is set free from his restriction due to the woman’s faith (Baldridge 1996). Baldridge takes encouragement from the Canaanite woman who changed the heart of God. Because she achieved the impossible, Baldridge believes it is possible to change the heart of Christians to be more considerate of Native Americans.
Racism remains in all its subtle forms, ranging from having the attendant ignore you and serve the two Pākehā (European New Zealander) people standing behind you in the line at the St David’s café at Otago University to the sentencing of a Māori male in the Dunedin Court to two years imprisonment for a string of minor crimes in which no person was physically injured. In comparison, the same Judge in the same courtroom on the same day suspends the drivers’ license of a Pākehā male for six months after he pleads guilty to killing a person while driving under the influence of alcohol. But the narrative of the Canaanite woman and Jesus also remains to give hope that racists can find their redemption and to show those affected by racism that powerlessness can be an effective and powerful tool in the campaign to give nothing to racism.
To be complicit in racism in the text leads to bad scholarship that defends, justifies, or normalizes the racism of Jesus and his disciples toward an unnamed Canaanite woman. Examples of such scholarship appear in the strategy of ignoring the woman and the words of Jesus that liken her to a dog. Several commentators suggest that the reference to the woman being a dog was jokingly said by Jesus with a wink in his eye just for the woman to see. 6 William Barclay could see that Jesus had ‘a smile on his face and the compassion in his eyes robbed the words of all insult and bitterness’ (Barclay 1956: 122). In calling her a dog, Jesus used a ‘soft tone of voice or looked at her in such a way to show playfulness’ (Garland 1996: 291; cf. Rhodes 1994). The worst example of bad scholarship is in the discussions about whether Jesus is comparing the woman to wild, untamed dogs or domestic house dogs, which were more acceptable. The conclusion is that Jesus was comparing the woman to a domestic dog, evidence that his remark was not harsh. 7 In trying to protect or defend Jesus, these examples instead convict Jesus and the disciples as racist and result in normalizing racism in the scholarly community.
The principle of give nothing to racism must apply in all facets of biblical scholarship. Heather McKay poses the question that many are too afraid to ask: Was Jesus racist in calling her a dog? (McKay 2014). If Jesus and his disciples are racist, then they too must be held to account. Being addressed as Lord, son of David, in the narrative is not an acceptable defence for racist behaviour. Being awarded several Christological titles means that Jesus has a privileged position, but it is no protection against being called out for unacceptable behaviour. While Jesus says that he came to fulfil the law, this does not place him above the law. Take away the Christological titles and what is left is a human person who remains accountable for rudely ignoring a mother looking for help for an ill daughter.
Good scholarship acknowledges that racist overtones exist in the text and holds it to account. Examples of textual accountability are shown by Gerd Theissen, who describes the words spoken by Jesus as ‘morally offensive’ (Theissen 1991: 61). Mary Ann Tolbert speaks of his words and actions as ‘an unacceptable act on the part of Jesus’ (Tolbert 1996: 185). Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza considers the narrative ‘theologically difficult’ (Schüssler Fiorenza 1992: 160). Sharon Ringe complains that it is ‘insulting in the extreme’ (Ringe 2001: 89). Lilly Nortjé-Meyer describes it as ‘discrimination at its worst’ (Nortjé-Meyer 2000). Beverley Moana Hall-Smith calls Jesus ‘a coloniser who marginalises the Canaanite woman’ (Hall-Smith 2009: 31). Walter Brueggemann says ‘the ethnocentrism of Jesus is being challenged by summoning Jesus from below’ (Brueggemann 2002: 172). These commentators engage with this narrative even when it makes them feel uncomfortable. This type of academic rigour maintains the integrity of both the text and the person who exegetes the text.
For a project focused on Christology, an obvious starting point is to explore the Christology within the narrative, though Miroslav Volf warns that this is a text concerning which sometimes too hasty Christological conclusions are drawn (Volf 1996: 214). The justification for the use of a Christological framework to critically analyse the story appears in the first words spoken by the Canaanite woman in the text: ‘Lord, son of David’, is a Christological statement. The word ‘Lord’ is formulaic in foundational Christian confessional statements, and ‘Son of David’ is a title used exclusively to identify Jesus as the healing and miracle-working Messiah of Israel (Luz 1995: 86, 111). Jesus is addressed as Son of David by two blind men (Mt. 9.27), by a demoniac (Mt. 12.23), by the Canaanite woman, and by two blind men in Jericho (Mt. 20.30). The phrase ‘Lord, son of David’, is vitally important to understanding the deeper Christology in the narrative. But this is Christology not through Jewish or Christian eyes but through the story of a Canaanite woman. To people who have suffered conquest and land loss, these four words, ‘Lord, son of David’, come with negative connotations that include genocide, power, control, hierarchy, submission, servanthood, slavery, vassalage, rule, superiority, and domination.
The Canaanite woman’s Christological statement and then her action of kneeling at the feet of Jesus to plead her case shows what compromise looks and sounds like for people of the land seeking help for the welfare of one of their children. Her words and actions show the extent of powerlessness that women of the land have to endure in unjust situations. In such times, the only aid or appeal they have is the power of powerlessness to unsettle the powerful.
These four words do not pass the lips of a Canaanite mother easily, and the effect of saying those words comes at a cost that she must bear. As a woman she is met with silence, suffers rejection, and endures a group of men talking about her as if she is invisible. As a mother she falls to her knees at the feet of a male begging to have her request agreed to. She juggles the duality of patience and persistence while waiting for her request to be responded to. When her request is not approved, she must beg like a dog, accepting the indignity of being satisfied with eating the scraps of another person’s food. Sadly, she is ridiculed and likened to a dog and has centuries of commentators doing her further violence and injustice by debating if she is a wild dog or a domestic one. This is what the word ‘Lord’ looks and feels like for an indigenous woman of the land who is pleading for her daughter’s life.
This narrative also has an ugly side that unwittingly shows a pack or gang mentality by Jesus and his disciples. Whether this is consciously intended by the people behind the creation of the text is unknown. The narrative depicts one lone woman isolated out in the open. Realizing her situation, she starts shouting loudly when she sees a pack of thirteen strange men suddenly appear. She approaches the leader of the group of men asking him for mercy as her daughter is ill. The leader of the pack ignores her request. His followers urge him to do something about her as they become agitated by her presence. He rejects her pleas and tersely calls her a dog. She accepts her predicament and falls to her knees begging for mercy. The leader of the pack comes to his senses and grants her mercy, allowing her to leave. This Christological narrative is delivered through the experience and words of a Canaanite mother seeking a cure for her ill daughter. The narrative could easily have had a different unpleasant ending and escalated into a scene of violence or a gang-rape scene. Certainly, the Canaanite woman was exposed to harsh words and attitudes that made her fall to the ground asking for mercy. Sadly, this is how many real-life experiences end when a woman finds herself isolated amongst a pack of agitated strange men—an experience suffered by Māori and Pākehā women during the New Zealand land wars.
The Christology in the narrative demonstrates that non-Israelite, non-Jewish people can view Jesus Christ through their lens of culture and land. In their context it is possible to see the essence of what other people see but to see and experience it differently. The Christology in the narrative is not controlled by the writers and editors of the story, nor is it controlled by any of the characters in the story. The controlling agent of the narrative is the community that continues to tell the narrative. What is seen, heard, felt, and interpreted is controlled by the reader of the story, who enters the world of the text as an active participant.
Writing as a Palestinian Christian born in Bethlehem and also the current Lutheran pastor in his home town, Mitri Raheb proposes that identity is the central issue of the Bible, as the entire Bible is a collection of diverse and contextual narratives of land, peoples and identities (Raheb 2007). The change in identity from Syrophoenician to Canaanite makes identity ‘the issue’ of the narrative. The response by Jesus shows that her identity as a Canaanite woman is the reason that prevents him from helping her daughter. Not only is the woman’s identity in question but so too the identity of Jesus is under the microscope for examination. The woman’s identification of Jesus as ‘Lord, son of David’, makes the identity of Jesus an issue, if not the issue, of the narrative. The location of the story is in the structural centre of Matthew’s Gospel, less than one chapter away from the definitive proclamation by Peter, which is fundamental to Christology. By being located close to Peter’s confession, this encounter is significant for understanding the identity of Jesus. It is too close not to have an impact on Mt. 16.13–20. Peter’s confessional statement is by a Jewish male who is at the centre of his community of followers. The Christological statement by the Canaanite woman is from a female, a mother with an ill daughter, an unnamed person from a different culture, society, and land. She is not part of the Jesus community of followers but is familiar with and fluent in their religious understanding. It is one thing to welcome into the fold a respected person that looks and sounds like you, but when that person comes with a disputed history, people are not as welcoming, as the text shows.
Identity, according to Miroslav Volf, is constructed in relationship to the other (Volf 1996: 91). The identity of Jesus is being constructed outside his community of believers by someone unexpectedly different, a complete outsider. When asserting identity, boundaries become clearly defined and fixed. They either allow the other to exist conditionally in the space you occupy or, alternatively, they inhibit others from entering your space. The location of the narrative in Tyre and Sidon is worthy of note. As far as we can tell, Jesus and his disciples had entered her land without an invitation. This company of travellers occupied her cultural and historical space. These invaders did not allow this lone woman in need to share the space they occupied in her land. They are the outsiders, the others, and it is the leader of their group whose identity is being constructed by the Canaanite woman in her land. She is the normalized person, the host of the narrative in her land.
Jesus is conflicted in many ways in the narrative. He has unresolved issues from previous generations that have influenced his dislike of Canaanite women. He is conflicted about his terms of mission that have become frayed around the edges. He has no problem in modifying his field of vision and his sense of purpose to include a Roman centurion, who is a person with influence and power, as the centurion points out to Jesus (Mt. 8.5–13). The Canaanite woman does not fit the description of a lost sheep of the house of Israel, nor does the text allude to her being a person of power or influence over others. This is a reality check where Jesus can make a strategic decision to maintain his mission without change or step outside the constraints of expectation. His conflict is whether to maintain his mission to the lost sheep of Israel or to radically change the terms of his mission to be a light to the Gentiles (Isa. 9.1; Mt. 4.15–16). This narrative provides Jesus with space to confront these issues and come to terms with them.
Whom we will listen to in the narrative is correlated with whom we will ignore and not listen to. In the story, there are a number of different voices speaking, that of Israelite-Canaanite history, the voice of Jesus’ disciples, the sound of the Canaanite woman, and voices in Jesus’ own consciousness. This is the reality of being a person of the land, and often you have to compete to have your voice legitimately recognized, heard, and respected. Having your voice heard on Christology is no different from having to compete with other voices who claim to speak for you, over you, at you, about you, around you, with you, but never allow you to claim your voice. The Canaanite woman claims her Christological voice and does not relent when under pressure. This is a vital connection to the later narrative in Mt. 16.13–20 in that Jesus asks his disciples to listen to what others are saying about who he is. He then requests the disciples to claim their voice and say who he is for them. Peter accepts the invitation and speaks.
The narrative of the Canaanite woman and Jesus follows the same theme of the Canaanite women mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (Mt. 1.1–17). Overcoming great obstacles, these women in the genealogy of Jesus enter into negotiation for the welfare of their people. The ancestress Tamar takes extreme action to gain her freedom from the constraints of levirate marriage. Another ancestress, Rahab, takes radical action to ensure that a section of her people survives against the impending onslaught against her people. The unnamed and unaccompanied Canaanite woman takes extreme action in coming out to meet Jesus and then putting up a verbal defence against his rebuttals. To answer back to a male in authority is extremely dangerous; many women in history and in the contemporary context have been and still are brutalized for such actions. Like her ancestors Tamar and Rahab, the Canaanite woman is the person who brokers hope for those treated like dogs and gives them a voice that Jesus eventually listens to.
Unlike characters in other healing stories, after the Canaanite woman receives what she requested, there is no ‘thank you’ moment at the end of the narrative, no record of her becoming a follower of Jesus, or telling others, or presenting her healed daughter to the Pharisees to verify the healing. She simply disappears and is never heard from again. We may take a wider missional point from this: people who have suffered historical and contemporary trauma should receive the Christological claim of Jesus Christ without any conditions being placed on them by the giver of the message. The people receiving the message should be allowed to walk away unconditionally and work out what it means for them in their way, in their own time and in their own space, and allowed the freedom to choose their method of expression if they do respond. Jesus ends his stay in Tyre and Sidon after this encounter. There are no other recorded encounters, teaching, healings, exorcisms, debates, or events in the land of the Canaanite woman. Jesus walks away from the meeting back to his land and home in Galilee.
Regardless of how many times the text is interpreted, the text remains: the Gospel of Matthew carries the Canaanite memory into the New Testament world of Jesus. In other Gospels, the Canaanites are written out of the story and assimilated into the Jewish-created identity of ‘Gentiles’. Matthew reclaims the Canaanite status of the ‘Gentile woman of Syrophoenician origin’ (Mk 8.26). Matthew writes back into the account of Jesus’ life and mission the memory of the Canaanites in the form of a Canaanite woman seeking assistance for her ill daughter.
By preserving the memory of the Canaanites, Matthew provides another crucial dimension to Christology through the people of the land. If Christology is to be meaningful to the contemporary world, it must move beyond ideological speculation and objectivism and place the narrative of the Canaanite woman and Jesus at the centre of Christological reflection (and political action). It must be given a level of attention equal to, if not more than, the confessional statement of Peter that follows closely after this narrative. The only obstacle to this equality is the stereotyped racism of appearing in someone else’s text as a ‘woman of the land’.
Conclusion
I have offered a reading of the Canaanite woman’s encounter with Jesus shaped by concerns that arise from my Māori experience, and focused on issues of people, land, racism, and encounter. Standing back from this particular passage I return to the broader questions with which this essay is concerned.
Reflecting on my experience in theological studies, colonization looks and feels like these things: Invisibility—being the only brown face in many classes is one thing, being ignored is another! Silence, irrelevancy—when you do speak up and bring a non-western point of view it is readily dismissed as some sort of deep cultural wisdom drawn from mother earth and father sky. Confusion—theology is dominated by western knowledge and ways of knowing, which means that it is a specialist language with alien words. I know what colonization looks like and feels like. This personal experience also gives me some ideas of what decolonization should look like when applied to New Testament Studies in Aotearoa New Zealand. Seven specific ideas:
that the lecturer at the front of the class looks and sounds like me;
that there is relevant Māori content in every theology paper that relates to the paper topic and is not reduced to teaching people how to culturally rub noses;
that there are Māori focussed assignments and exam questions in every paper;
that the Māori language, an official language of this country, is acknowledged, with assessments being able to be completed in te reo Māori without translations;
that a broad range of assessment methods are utilized during course work.
These are all structural and systemic imaginations of a possible reality that provides a level playing field, so you are no longer the ‘other’ in the class and academy. At the end of the day being Māori is about people and doing good for people. My fifth and six points are about changing people’s reality for the better:
ensuring that Māori students are there in numbers with elevated rates of retention and success being the norm;
ensuring that Māori are there in numbers as lecturers in theology and not the isolated cultural worker in a department as is my current reality.
These seven criteria would equally apply to all other minorities who have enrolled in the paper.
I am an academic, the only Māori who lectures fulltime in theology at a university in the world. I am that brown Māori face at the front of the class inspiring generations of Māori to be good theological scholars who can stand on the international stage with the best that the world has to offer. If decolonizing New Testament Studies is about anything less than preparing Māori to stand on the international global stage, then it is nothing more than a symbolic tick-box exercise to make the academy publicly look good on the outside. It is the inside that matters. Colonization is like the exodus: we have been through the hard times in the wilderness. Decolonization for Māori is about entering the promised land and thriving; it is time to enter that promised land as a God-given right and to demand of the theological academy the right to thrive at all levels, unhindered. However, it comes with a warning: there is a price to be paid, as Moses found out. How long this Māori face can last at the front of the class time will tell.
In this article, I have drawn on my own experience and work, and also on the views of other Māori theologians concerning colonization and decolonization. Drawing these insights together offers some proposals on what decolonizing New Testament Studies would look and feel like:
the inclusion of a Māori hermeneutic based on kaupapa and tikanga, by Māori, with Māori, for Māori, for everyone else who lives in this land;
a New Testament Studies where Te Tiriti ō Waitangi is central and includes Māori worldviews;
a non-weaponized New Testament Studies that acknowledges the inherent goodness of humanity;
having the courage to stand in front of the biblical text as Māori;
a hermeneutical framework that is drawn from Māori epistemologies;
a New Testament Studies that dismantles the symbols of colonization, allowing Māori to escape from the narrative that they have been written into;
more brown faces at the front of the class and standing on the international theological stage teaching;
transforming unjust systems so people, language, and culture flourish;
promoting the regaining of sovereignty and territorial rights;
a New Testament Studies that is an open system of epistemological dialogue and inclusion.
Māori have spoken in an attempt to offer a view on this topic. The challenge is, will their voice and opinion be heard and acted upon or will it become like many other worthy articles and remain ignored at the margins of the discipline?