Contextual Bible reading and intercultural Bible reading: Four Colombian experiences

Edgar A López

doi:10.4102/hts.v77i4.7069

Abstract

Contextual Bible Reading (CBR) and Intercultural Bible Reading (IBR) have enabled the cooperation between socially engaged scholars and marginalised groups to find new resources in biblical texts to interpret their contexts and fight against the surrounding violence. As the use of these two methods has not been the object of a comparative study based on concrete experiences, this article presents them through four cases of Christian communities in Colombia. This comparative study not only illustrates the differences between these two methods of Bible reading, but also shows how they open new hermeneutic and liberation perspectives in the struggle for social justice and the search for reconciliation. The article depicts the CBR of the story of the Levite’s concubine (Jdg 19:1–30) by a group of women living in vulnerable conditions as well as the CBR of the parable of the father and his two sons (Lk 15:11–32) by a group of violence victims’ relatives. It also depicts the IBR of the story of the widow and the judge (Lk 18:1–8) by four groups of Caribbean readers as well as the IBR of the garden story (Gn 2:4b–25) by two Andean indigenous groups. Ordinary readers’ central role as interpreters of biblical texts let them recognise their own capabilities to transform their contexts in an emancipatory way and challenge biblical scholars and theologians. Even though CBR and IBR pursue different hermeneutical goals, they converge in giving a central role to the community as the subject of counter-hegemonic interpretations that open new horizons starting from reality and triggering liberation processes.Contribution: Beyond their differences and tensions, CBR and IBR are inclusive and dialogical methods intended for liberation that should be used to transcend the limits of dominant interpretations of biblical texts as well as the isolation of marginalised ordinary readers.

Highlights

Colombian society is characterised by a high social inequality associated with a long-term armed conflict (CHCV 2015)
Even though any interpretation of a biblical text is contextual in a broad sense, the Contextual Bible Reading (CBR) as a specific method comes from the importance given by Latin American liberation theology to the relationship between praxis and interpretation (Croatto 1994), as well as the need of South African liberation theology to resist the apartheid’s theology in the 1980s (West 2014)
The four cases presented in this comparative study show how both CBR and Intercultural Bible Reading (IBR) bring up the liberation meaning potential of biblical texts

Summary

Introduction

Colombian society is characterised by a high social inequality associated with a long-term armed conflict (CHCV 2015). A recent study about the reading of the unforgiving debtor story (Mt 18:21–35) by eight Colombian groups of internally displaced victims used PRB to enrich scholar’s interpretation of the text (Heimburger, Hays & Mejía-Castillo 2019) This could be an example of how ‘ordinary readers remain mere informants for the professional exegetes’ (Loba-Mkole 2021:3). A more recent doctoral dissertation (Pacheco 2020) showed how the peasants of El Garzal, a community engaged in a legal fight for its rights against expropriation of land, read the story of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Ki 21:1–19) and some other biblical narratives using the PRB to reflect on reconciliation This could be an example of how ordinary readers are positioned as ‘fields of application’ (Loba-Mkole 2021:3). These cases evidence how both methods open new hermeneutic and liberation perspectives in the struggle for social justice and the search for reconciliation

Methods and cases

Conclusion

Ethical considerations