The Old Testament’s wilderness image authorized Protestant dominion over nature and land.

Evidence

The expulsion from the Garden into the wilderness equated the wilderness with the evil introduced when Eve submitted to the temptation of the serpent. The desert represented a land to be subdued and made arable, a land whose fertility was tied directly to the amount of rainfall. In contrast to the Greek tradition, which tended to emphasize the benevolence of nature, the Judaic tradition viewed it as a condition to be overcome and subdued. While softer interpretations could be found in the books of the Old Testament, it was the perception of nature as a wilderness that became important in the early modern era. For Protestants such as John Locke, John Calvin, and the New England Puritans, God had authorized human dominion over the earth. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 555

Categorization

• XREF: Settler-colonial critique thread in the polyad — Locke’s dominion theology connects to Indigenous land dispossession claims across courses. — connects to: Wilderness originally signified biblical places of moral peril and exile — William Cronon, The Trouble with Wilderness; or,…, 9; Settlers imposed idyllic biblical landscapes onto harsh colonial territory; Claims of sacred land ownership secure one group’s dominance over others — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 120 (+6 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how the Puritan reading of Genesis shaped actual New England land-clearing and Indian land seizure in the reader’s eco-justice syllabus.

Broader Connections

• Settlers imposed idyllic biblical landscapes onto harsh colonial territory #corroborates (0.93)
• White pastoral literature imposed Edenic biblical meaning onto harsh colonial landscapes #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1403
• Colonial legal denial of Native land rights was grounded in Protestant religious supremacy. #expands (0.85) — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 204
• American civil religion is built on Biblical archetypes of chosenness and promised land. #expands (0.80)
• Colonial magistrates claimed the Old Testament explained Zulu law and customs #exemplifies (0.80) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 331
• Claims of sacred land ownership secure one group’s dominance over others #expands (0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 120
• American national-consensus rhetoric dates to the Puritan errand in the wilderness. #expands (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Covering Islam, 186
• Medieval geography interpreted physical space through biblical narrative #qualifies (0.72) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 599