Review of Royce M. Victor, 2010, Colonial Education and Class Formation in Early Judaism: A Postcolonial Reading Journal of Postcolonial Theory and Theology,Library of Second Temple Studies 72, London and New York: T&T Clark, pp. 224.
A revision of the author’s doctoral dissertation, this monograph has a two-pronged focus. First, drawing primarily from 1 and 2 Maccabees, it examines how “the Greek gymnasium established in Jerusalem in the second century BCE was used to educate the local elites to function politically, ethnically, and economically within the Greek Empire and particularly in Judea, by creating a separate class of ‘Hellenized Jews’ among the local Jewish population” (p. vii). As a second area of focus, Victor argues that the British education system in early nineteenth century India was employed in a similar way to create a class of Indians to serve in the British colonial system. As such, Victor’s work “makes an inquiry into how colonialism functioned and continues to function in both the ancient and modern societies” (p. vii).