Mark G. Brett the explores the complexities that have emerged in the interactions between biblical interpretation and colonial theories of Indigenous natural rights. This wide-ranging study shows how the legacies of these interactions still shape the laws of property and our understanding of Indigenous rights and responsibilities today.

Mark G. Brett teaches Hebrew Bible at Whitley College in Melbourne, Australia, within the University of Divinity. His research over the past two decades has focused on ethnicity, politics, and decolonial studies. From 2005 to 2008, he worked for an Aboriginal representative body on new frameworks for the negotiation of native title claims within the state of Victoria. He has served as an executive editor of the interdisciplinary journal Biblical Interpretation and as general editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature. His previous books include Locations of God: Political Theology in the Hebrew Bible (OUP, 2019).

• Introduction


• 1: Eddie Mabo as Moses


• 2: Discovery and War


• 3: States of Nature


• 4: Whiteness and Genocide


• 5: Canaanites in the Land


• 6: Humans and other Creatures


• 7: Polities in Place


• 8: Conclusions and Implications


• Bibliography


• Index