Gendered African (biblical) scholarship: An ode to Talitha

Why bother with the Bible in the postcolonial situation? ' (p. xii) This question, posed in the Foreword, lurks behind the various contributions that comprise this edited volume, making it an excellent book to stimulate critical reflection on issues of postcoloniality that demand attention in contemporary biblical studies. The contributors are a balance of established biblical scholars and emerging voices in the field, predominantly from the two 'centres' of southern Africa and the UK that engaged in a three-year dialogue, funded by the British Academy International Partnership Fund. The book is arranged in three main parts, in each of which two main essays elicit a reflective response from a third scholar. While they should not expect this to be a primer in postcolonial biblical hermeneutics, careful readers -alert to such matters -will find that the basic tenets of a postcolonial approach are exhibited: the problem of uncritiqued structures such as whiteness and patriarchy (chapter 5); the unavoidable influence of power dynamics in the way the Bible is read (chapter 7); the entwinement of the translation of the Bible with colonial structures and missionary activity (chapter 11); and the need for first-hand encounter with contextually produced biblical interpretation in order to challenge the tendency of 'othering' that which is different (chapter 12). That last point is important. One of the recurring themes of the volume is that African biblical scholarship 'is accountable to "ordinary" African readers/users/hearers of the Bible' (p. 118). As such, since contemporary African biblical scholarship seeks to makes sense of the Bible in the midst of ordinary African experience, it is less concerned to pay homage to Western hermeneutical methodologies. By contrast, postcolonial biblical scholarship in the West -despite its good intentions -might be in danger of exploiting African readings, commodifying them for its own purposes, in a fateful reiteration of coloniality (p. 123-4). There is therefore some irony in this volume. In seeking to narrate a scholarly engagement between African and British biblical scholars, the essays somewhat undermine the 'ordinary' context that is the stated natural habitat of African biblical hermeneutics. The writers, though, do seem on the whole to be aware of this irony, and it is that self-conscious humility -recognising both the compromised nature of all attempts to read the Bible, and the reality that every 'centre' of interpretation is a 'margin' for some other 'centre' -that makes this volume a worthwhile study for serious biblical scholars today. There is not a single unified postcolonial biblical hermeneutic presented here, but rather a series of careful engagements with biblical, African and Western voices that matter. Ghanian scholar Mark Aidoo notes that contemporary biblical scholars need to be like the okyeame, the Akan spokesperson, who speaks with eloquence and wisdom in order to provoke a community to greater engagement and action (p. 111). In bringing together a range of voices to explore African and postcolonial readings of the Bible, this volume is one such okyeame, perhaps to encourage all biblical scholarship -African and Western -to become accountable to the 'ordinary'.

This article investigates interpretations of the Book of Ruth from the point of view of some African scholars. Firstly, an attempt is made to understand what is meant by African biblical hermeneutics (ABH). An overview of the emergence of ABH is given, and the question why reading the Bible from an African perspective was necessary, is addressed. It appears that African biblical scholars and an African Christian community could not relate to Western European interpretations of the Bible that reflect western experiences and concerns that were vastly different from their own postcolonial experiences and concerns since the latter part of the 20th century.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The engagement between Western and ABH is discussed, and ABH as a necessary and viable means of biblical interpretation is recognised, but a point of critique is also raised at the end of this section. Thereafter an overview of ABH as appropriated to the Book of Ruth is given, and finally, some evaluative conclusions are drawn.

This study delves into the intricate landscape of Mother Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics within the context of African Biblical Hermeneutics, aiming to unravel its origins, discern trends, and confront challenges. Employing a qualitative research methodology grounded in extensive literature review and critical analysis, this investigation explores the evolution and current state of Mother Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics in the African context.Findings underscore the significance of linguistic and cultural nuances in biblical interpretation, emphasizing the role of indigenous languages in shaping contextual understanding and relevance. Moreover, the study identifies persistent challenges including colonial legacies, linguistic imperialism, and theological biases that impede the full realization of Mother Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics.In light of these findings, recommendations are proposed to foster the integration of indigenous languages into biblical scholarship, advocate for linguistic diversity, and promote inclusivity in theological discourse. Ultimately, this study contributes to scholarship by illuminating the vital intersection of language, culture, and interpretation in African Biblical Hermeneutics, thereby enriching theological dialogue and advancing decolonial approaches to biblical studies. Keywords: Biblical Hermeneutics, African Biblical Hermeneutics, Mother-tongue Biblical studies, Origin, Trends and Challenges.

The pattern of biblical hermeneutics in Africa was built on Euro-American philosophies, cultures and methodologies until the early 1960s. This necessitated a scholarly call for re-interpretation of the inherited interpretations and translations, as some scholars blamed colonial influence. Consequently, some of the newly developed methods of biblical interpretations in Africa include: neo-prophetic hermeneutics in Africa, postcolonial biblical interpretation, postcolonial perspectives in African biblical interpretations, intercultural exegesis, and mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics (MTBH). This study focused on the methodology of mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics, commending its key proponents, namely, Aloo Mojola, John D.K. Ekem, Jonathan E.T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor, and others. Using literature and interviews, this paper assessed the contributions of Kuwornu-Adjaottor in the promotion of MTBH in African biblical scholarship. Findings revealed Kuwornu-Adjaottor’s “nine-step methodology” for doing MTBH academically and practically, which is being adopted in many universities, seminaries and Bible translation societies in Africa, including Ghana. In addition to raising many student-disciples as well as taking a philosophical position for deconstruction and dynamic equivalence in biblical scholarship, the scholar advocates that Bible translation involves interpretation in order to produce a meaning that considers the contexts of the receptor or local audience. This paper contributes to the promotion of mother-tongue Bible translation and mother-tongue theologizing in Africa. Keywords: African Biblical Scholarship; Mother-Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics; Bible Translation and Interpretation; Kuwornu-Adjaottor’s Methodology

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

This study attempts to critically re-examine certain key hermeneutical concerns of a representative group of African biblical and religious studies scholars, who ground African theological reflection on traditional African values, cultures and social realities. Most of the scholars examined are united by a focus on the past and by an attempt to interpret the present and future on the basis of it. The article critiques the backward-looking hermeneutic implicit in the work of the scholars, especially Jesse Mugambi’s backward-looking metaphor of reconstruction. It proposes a hermeneutic based on the metaphor of liberation, as employed, for example, by African women theologians or by Gerald West or Emmanuel Katongole, who focus on building the present and future on the basis of a new liberative transformative narrative and praxis that prioritises the sacredness and inviolability of human life in the context of the web of life, and in particular foregrounds the dignity of African lives, as well as all others.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The article engages exposition and understanding of biblical texts by African scholars. Aspects of NT Christology or Ecclesiology are connected to theologies of traditional African socio-cultural realities. The relevance for an African theology of liberation and African theology of women is defended as necessitated by a new liberative transformative hermeneutic.

This chapter analyses how and with what we connect biblical text and local present context in the process of interpretation. What has emerged has been recognition that it is useful to identify a third pole in the interpretive process besides the poles of context and text. This third pole is usually suppressed in favour of a bi-polar model of interpretation. However, identifying a third pole helps us to be honest about the reader and his/ her ideo-theological work that goes on in the interpretive act. The ongoing process of re-reading scripture from within our social locations also constantly reconstitutes our ideo-theological orientation. Biblical scholarship does not always cooperate with socially engaged biblical scholars. The exile is a particularly good example at this moment in (South) Africas history.Keywords: African biblical scholarship; exile; ideo-theological orientation; post-colonial south africa; third pole

Biblical Scholarship in Africa has consistently argued for the complementarity between the scientific study of the biblical text and the adoption of suitable hermeneutical approaches, which is necessary for the transmission of its message and the transformation of contemporary African society. African Biblical Scholars have thus shown the way in bringing various aspects of Africa’s rich culture, proverbs, rituals, and moral norms, among others, into dialogue with the biblical text, bringing this text closer to the African reader, on the one hand, and facilitating the transformation of the receptor culture on the other. One of the less explored ways through which these same goals might be achieved is to bring the results of the exegesis of the biblical text into dialogue with African Indigenous Sacred Texts. This paper, using the distinctive interest approach to African Biblical Hermeneutics, studies the critique of wealth in Psalm 49 and in the Adinkra text, Owuo mpɛ sika (death accepts no money), an indigenous text of the Akan people of Ghana and La Côte d’Ivoire. It argues that these two sacred texts both call attention to the risks of absolutizing wealth instead of the well-being of the human person, thus urging an evaluation and reimagination of the concept of wealth in contemporary Ghanaian society.

In this article, two lenses are used to engage the task of African Biblical Hermeneutics. The one lens is derived from African wisdom, i shavha i sia muinga i ya fhi?, in which there is a need for people to affirm their own roots. Drawing from the wisdom of the preceding proverb, we argue that, in their scholarship, African biblical scholars have to take seriously their own African heritage and thus do justice to their contexts rather than rely heavily on Western paradigms if their scholarship is to impact communities and also contribute towards shaping the face of biblical hermeneutics as a whole. The other lens is an analogy derived from the following events in Jesus� life: incarnation, death and resurrection. The task of African Biblical Hermeneutics has to be a three-fold process for the Bible to be �gospel� in Africa: Firstly, the incarnation of the Word � the Bible as the Other has to incarnate into African contexts for it to become an African Word. Secondly, the death of the Word � this entails a critical engagement with the Word from multiple perspectives for it to be relevant to the struggles of African people. Thirdly, the resurrection of the Word � the biblical text has to be allowed to address and transform an African person in new creative ways.

One of the specific objectives of the Stellenbosch conference was to discuss the relation between exegesis and actualisation. This chapter presents main outlines of those discussions. Four key concepts are described in the chapter: context, exegetical methods, actualisation and the reader(s). In the process, the author does not limit himself strictly to a summary of the dialogue, but also outlines the broad framework within which the Stellenbosch conference took place. By doing so, he provides an insight into the global developments in the discussion on exegesis and actualisation. In spite of the considerable differences in context between African and European biblical scholars, the Stellenbosch conference yielded a great deal. Perhaps it can even be argued that the discussion was so meaningful precisely because of those large differences.Keywords: actualisation; African biblical scholars; European biblical scholars; exegetical methods; ordinary readers; scholarly context; Stellenbosch conference

The article discusses the scholarship of Kwame Bediako, John Mbiti, Justin Ukpong and Charles Nyamiti to decipher their contributed to the development of a framework for theology, Christology and biblical scholarship in Africa and the development of the African context as an alternative to theology, Christology and biblical scholarship in Africa and beyond. The article used a combination of methods for data collection, interpretation and analysis. This included (a) the biographical with emphasis on intellectual scholarship. This enabled the researcher to assess the intellectual works of selected scholars. (b) there was also content analysis of primary and secondary sources across literature and scholars to evaluate the extent of the impact of the writings of the selected scholars. These works were evaluated in context with both contemporary and modern scholarship. The objective was to decipher how their scholarship has advanced the African context for Christian theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics in Africa. The study discovered that since the rise in the need to identify and make an African contribution to the continuous nomenclatures of Christian theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics that recognize the African experience as a critical necessity in the search for a more wholistic and comprehensive theoretical framework for theology, christology and biblical hermeneutics, these scholars made such a huge contribution not on methodology alone but also on conceptualisation. They contributed to a very large extent to the recovery of African dignity, and the establishment of a philosophy, theology, christology and that was authentically African, credible and viable for any academic scholarship. They were also able to explain how the African context contributes to existing scholarship on nomenclatures of normative Christian theology, Christology and biblical hermeneutics in Africa. Keywords: Christianity, Theology, Christology, Traditions and Culture

One of the prolific writers in the discipline of African Biblical Hermeneutics is the Nigerian Old Testament (OT) scholar, Professor Tuesday David Adamo. In his tireless efforts to unlock the OT reality for African contexts, persuaded by his commitment to decolonise the subject of Biblical Studies, Adamo has made successful efforts to reflect on the African presence in the Old Testament. The present study seeks to engage Adamo's concept of African Biblical hermeneutics in order to investigate whether the author sufficiently discussed the theme of gender in his discourses. This research attempts to respond to the following two main questions in view of Adamo's discourses: (1) In Adamo's concerted effort of confirming the presence of Africa and Africans in the Hebrew Bible, does the woman question feature? (2) If so, how does Adamo navigate the question? Keywords: Adamo; African Biblical Hermeneutics; African Woman; Bosadi; Hebrew Bible/Old Testament; Wife.

African contextual biblical hermeneutics, practiced mainly among those from the southern hemisphere, is framed by conflicting academic approaches, methods, epistemologies, rationalities, etc. The general challenge put before the Bible scholars in this part of the world mostly concerns methodologies. This paper focuses on the link between a biblical text and the context of its interpretation. To avoid any specific context or interpreter gaining hermeneutical hegemony over the text, in contextual biblical hermeneutics, the coherence should be first and foremost between the text and the context of its interpretation. The interpretation method of Ifá, the sacred orature of Yoruba and some non-Yoruba people in West Africa, helps to achieve that coherence. This paper is a theoretical presentation of what a contextual biblical hermeneutic can learn from this African Sacred literature reading in context. The hermeneutical rationale of Ifá stories is one of “speaking in proverbs”, considering both the stories and their interpretations as proverbs. In line with this rationale, the ideal link between a biblical text and its hermeneutical context is like the one between a “proverb story” and the many stories (contexts) of its harmonious utterances. The epistemological and hermeneutical functions of the context of interpretation are not to interpret the biblical text but to verify the validity of proposed interpretations.

In this study, it is argued that the trust of previous (and existing) hermeneutical approaches of promoting ancient biblical texts as applicable to the everyday life of contemporary readers is not only imaginable but also too ambitious. The Hebrew Bible emerged from an Israelite cultural context, which neither speaks to nor deliberates on issues concerning the African cultural contexts. The present essay utilises a narrative approach comprising three main overtures. Firstly, some examples of previous contributions on hermeneutics will be discussed. Secondly, this study interrogates the legitimacy of employing African biblical hermeneutics that utilises ancient Jewish texts as applicable to African societies today. Thirdly and finally, the study will critically appraise for a balanced reading of the biblical text.Contribution: The present study aims at engaging (debriefing) existing hermeneutical contributions towards proposing a balanced reading of the biblical text. In order to achieve that goal, the study engages into a dialogue following hermeneutical approaches, which are popular amongst most African scholars, namely African biblical hermeneutics, black biblical hermeneutics, contextual biblical hermeneutics, feminist hermeneutics and oral hermeneutics.

‘Hermeneutics’, or the theory of the interpretation of texts, was a substantive component of much biblical scholarship in the 1980 and 1990s. Many articles or essays would begin with a definition of ‘hermeneutics’. Few, however, would be explicit about their own ‘theory of the interpretation of texts’, preferring to define ‘hermeneutics’ and then continue as if their own theory of the interpretation of texts was self-evident. Significantly, South African Black Theology, particularly in its second phase (in the late 1980s), was explicit about its theory of the interpretation of text. Situating itself within this trajectory, the Ujamaa Centre for Community Development and Research has attempted to be explicit about its hermeneutics since its inception in the late 1980s. This article locates the hermeneutic trajectory of the Ujamaa Centre within the formative hermeneutic debates in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drawing on the work of South Africans like Welile Mazamisa (whose work I along with other colleagues celebrate; see 2025-HTS: Honouring Prof Welile Mazamisa: The Reader, the Text, and Two Horizons), Bernard Lategan, Gunther Wittenberg, Jonathan Draper, Itumeleng Mosala, Takatso Mofokeng, and others. The Ujamaa Centre was fortunate at the time, in the early 1990s, in having the inclusive space of Bernard Lategan’s yearly Consultation on Contextual Hermeneutics, facilitated by the Centre for Contextual Hermeneutics at Stellenbosch University, as well as the inclusive publication practice of the journal Scriptura, which published the work of this Consultation and related biblical hermeneutic work. This yearly workshop identified biblical (and theological) hermeneutics as its core focus. My article tracks these formative conversations, reflecting on how this yearly workshop and Scriptura provided the safe space to be overt about the Ujamaa Centre’s emerging theory of the interpretation of texts. Keywords: Contextual Biblical Interpretation, Ujamaa Centre, Centre for Contextual Theology, Scriptura, Site of Struggle, Hermeneutics