Chapter Two. Interrogating The Comparative Paradigm In African Biblical Scholarship

Abstract

There is general agreement among those who cast an analytical eye on African biblical scholarship that it is dominated by what has been called 'the comparative paradigm'. This chapter interrogates the comparative paradigm, in an attempt both to understand what African biblical scholars are up to and to understand the similarities and differences between what they do and what Euro-American colleagues do. It makes a heuristic distinction between life interests and interpretive interests in order to characterise African biblical scholarship. The chapter presents guiding questions for the interrogation of the comparative paradigm: why dialogue with the Bible; and what are the dimensions of the dialogue with the Bible. African biblical scholarship is the closest connection to the dominant forms of biblical scholarship in the Euro-American tradition.Keywords: African biblical scholarship; comparative paradigm; Euro-American scholarship