Resistance and Trauma in Chronicles

In Resistance and Trauma in Chronicles, David Janzen uses postcolonial and decolonial theory to argue that Chronicles was written in important part to resist and reject the ways in which Achaemenid ideology depicted the subject peoples of the Persian Empire, Judeans among them, as innately immoral and prone to violence, and thus in need of Persian rule. By contrast, Chronicles creates an identity for Judeans that portrays them as inherently moral and able to provide for their own peace and well-being. These were  aspects of life that, the Achaemenids claimed, only Persians could convey to the peoples they dominated. Yet decolonial analysis also warns that indigenous worldviews cannot entirely escape the influence of imperial belief systems. As a result, Chronicles is not always successful in its decolonial portrayal of Judah. It reflects the state of a traumatized community deeply scarred by imperial ideology, an issue that Janzen explores through trauma theory as it is understood within sociology.