African Biblical Studies: Unmasking Embedded Racism and Colonialism in Biblical Studies

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Andrew M. Mbuvi makes the case for African biblical studies as a vibrant and important emerging distinct discipline, while also using its postcolonial optic to critique biblical studies for its continued underlying racially and imperialistically motivated tendencies. Mbuvi argues that the emergence of biblical studies as a discipline in the West coincides with, and benefits from, the establishment of the colonial project that included African colonization. At the heart of the colonial project was the Bible, not only as ferried by missionaries to convert “heathens in the distant lands,” but as the text used in the justification of the colonial violence. On these grounds, Mbuvi makes the case that non-western approaches continue to be marginalized and struggle to gain currency in the discipline as they are generally judged as “unscholarly” or somehow outside of the narrow criteria of western biblical studies. African Biblical Studies exposes these oppressive and subjugating tendencies as unresolved remnants of a colonial past, advocating and applying methodologies and studies that prioritized readings from the perspective of the marginalized and oppressed. These readings destabilize and undermine the dominant approaches and their ingrained prejudices, both in the biblical text and the interpretive process employed in western biblical studies, by reading from below, with the underprivileged and the marginalized. Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations Part I: The Bible, Colonialism, and Biblical Studies Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: Colonialism and the European Enlightenment 2.1 The Enlightenment and the Bible 2.2 The Bible, God, and Colonialism in Africa Chapter 3: (Western) Biblical Studies and African Colonialism 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Albert Schweitzer: Biblical Scholar, Missionary, Colonialist Part II: The Bible, Colonial Encounters, and Unexpected Outcomes Chapter 4: Bible Translation as Biblical Interpretation: The Colonial Bible 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Vernacular Bible—The “Colonized” Bible 4.3 Vernacular Bible and Vernacular Hermeneutics—Planting Seeds of Decolonization 4.4 African Presence in the Bible: Whitewashing of a Text and a People Chapter 5: The Bible and African Reality 5.1 Concept of God in African Christianity 5.2 Outline of African Religious Reality Chapter 6: Emerging African Postcolonial Biblical Criticism 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Négritude: Black Consciousness and Religion 6.3 African Indig​enous​/Inde​pende​nt/In​stitu​ted/I​nitia​ted Churches (AICs) 6.4 Hermeneutics of Rehabilitation: Post-Independence African Bible Scholarship Part III: African Biblical Studies: Setting a Postcolonial Agenda Chapter 7: Decolonizing the Bible: A Postcolonial Response 7.1 Definition of African Biblical Studies 7.2 Scope of African Biblical Studies 7.3 Exegesis versus Hermeneutics: Contemporary versus Historical Chapter 8: The Bible and Postcolonial African Literature 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Dialogical Construct between Christianity and African Religion—Chinua Achebe 8.3 Reconstituting Biblical Themes for a New Postcolonial Christianity—Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o Chapter 9: Rewriting the Bible: Recasting the Colonial Text 9.1 Introduction 9.2 The Paradox of the Bible—Takatso Mofokeng 9.3 Liberating the Bible—Itumeleng Mosala 9.4 A “Supra-Bible” for All—Canaan Banana 9.5 Reconstruction Hermeneutics: The Post-colonial/Post-Apartheid Bible 9.6 Conclusion Chapter 10: Eschatology, Colonialism, and Mission: An African Critique of Linear Eschatology 10.1 Western Missionary Apocalypticism and Demonization of the African Religious Reality 10.2 John Mbiti’s Critique of Western Eschatology 10.3 A South African Liberationist Eschatology: Allan Boesak 10.4 Ebussi Boualaga’s “Christic Model” Chapter 11: “Ordinary Readers” and the Bible: Non-Academic Biblical Interpretation 11.1 Who Are “Ordinary Readers”? 11.2 What Is Reading “With” versus Reading “For”? Chapter 12: Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible in Africa 12.1 Wälättä P̣eṭros: A Proto-Colonial Model of an African Christian Woman’s Encounter with European Christianity 12.2 Gender and Sexuality Discourse in African Biblical Studies Today Chapter 13: Christology in Africa: “Who Do You Say That I Am?” 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Jesus in Africa 13.3 Christology and Feminism 13.4 Conclusion Chapter 14: Conclusion: Toward a Decolonized Biblical Studies 14.1 Transforming Biblical Studies 14.2 Constructing a “Hermeneutic of Hope” 14.3 A Final Thought Bibliography Name and Subject Index Biblical Index