Mother Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics within the Context of African Biblical Hermeneutics: It’s Origin, Trends and Challenges

Attributed in Christian scripture to Jesus’s very lips, the intriguing Aramaic phrase ‘Talitha, Kum!’ has emerged as an important refrain within gendered African theological scholarship. African women’s experiences in the hands of religion and culture do so resonate with the two tangled stories that comprise the phrase’s literary context. The resonance is such that African women’s Bible reading strategies have come to be referred to as ‘Talitha cum African women’s biblical hermeneutics’ or some variant thereof. The ensuing panegyric by a male admirer engages the fresh ways whereby African women biblical hermeneutics (aka Talitha) are breathing new life into (African) biblical scholarship. In appreciation and tribute to African women theologians’ fragrant contributions to Christian life and reflection, the ode samples their work in a manner that in places feels intrusive whilst certainly nowhere near complete.

On the issue of methodology, oral literature has been decisive in the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Africa. For instance, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan�a Mphahlele) convincingly employed the folktale of the �Rabbit and the Lion� in her interpretation of the Bible. That Narratology and Orality in African Biblical Hermeneutics is a rarely researched area within biblical scholarship provides room for further studies in this area. This article argues that the reading of the Deuteronomistic story of Naboth�s vineyard and Jehu�s revolution in the light of Intsomi yamaXhosa [the folktale of the Xhosa people] illustrates how biblical interpretation in Africa could be informed by Orality and Narratology. This article examines the light that the socio-economic function of the story of Naboth�s vineyard and Jehu�s revolution would throw on the function of the folktale of Intsimi yeenyamakazana, and vice versa. Furthermore, the present article probes the socio-economic implications that can be drawn from biblical and Xhosa Orality and Narratology for post-apartheid South Africa.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article draws on the indigenous knowledge system, namely Xhosa Narratology and Orality, to interpret Old Testament texts with a view to offering liberating socio-economic possibilities for poor black people in South Africa.

Madipoane Masenya and Hulisani Ramantswana (2012:598-637) have argued that 18 years into the democratic dispensation, South African Old Testament scholarship is still trapped in Eurocentric methods of interpreting the biblical text, deliberately avoiding any meaningful dialogue with the African context. Accordingly, this article examines the role of African Biblical Hermeneutics in the current South African context. In the first section we will engage with Christo Lombaard’s assertion that African Biblical Hermeneutics has not succeeded in its endeavor because it does not use exegesis in its methodological approach. We will also dialogue with another Western Biblical scholar, Gerrie Snyman, who uses the concept of whiteness to engage with his Western Afrikaner context. We will then move on to discuss the three poles of African Biblical Hermeneutics, before focusing on two trends and patterns in African Biblical Hermeneutics, namely, Black biblical hermeneutics and African Feminist hermeneutics. In this last section, we want to examine several challenges facing African Biblical Hermeneutics in the post-Apartheid context. We will start off by locating ourselves in the post-Apartheid context. We will then quickly move on to spell out what the role of African Biblical Hermeneutics could be in the post-Apartheid context.

This guide accompanies the following article(s): Mark Sneed, Social Scientific Approach to the Hebrew Bible, Religion Compass 2/3 (2008) pp. 287–300, 10.1111/j.1749‐8171.2008.00072.x Author’s Introduction The social science approach to the Hebrew Bible has steadily gained in popularity in recent years. It is heir to the older and formerly dominant historical critical approach to the Bible but focuses on society as whole instead of just kings, high priests, and the elite. And it goes beyond the also popular social history approach by incorporating social theory into its interpretation of texts and Israelite society. It transforms the two dimensional portrayal of biblical characters in Scripture into three dimensional flesh and blood figures whose lives are motivated and shaped by larger societal forces. The social science approach also aids in foregrounding the ‘Otherness’ of the biblical text, demonstrating how the biblical text reflects a culture that is unfamiliar to our modern Western world. It also serves as a check against the currently popular literary critical approach to the Bible that has a tendency to blunt that strangeness of the ancient text and read modern cultural assumptions and notions back into the same text. But the social science approach has also become more postmodern, and its adherents are not naïve about how their own social locations influence the way they interpret Scripture and the choices they make regarding what models they apply to the biblical text. Biblical sociologists have also become more skeptical about the reliability of ancient texts for reconstructing socio‐historical reality because of their inherently biased character and have proposed ways to separate the wheat from the chaff. And finally, the social science approach has become more self‐conscious of the speculative nature of applying theoretical models to ancient texts and the danger of making the text fit the model. However, in spite of this, biblical sociologists believe it is worth the risk and that their approach makes an important contribution to biblical criticism and that it makes biblical studies exciting and relevant. Online Materials 1. http://www.kchanson.com/ A fascinating site from a New Testament sociologist. It contains tremendous amounts of information including archaeological photos, bibliographies (e.g. ‘The Old Testament: Social Sciences &amp; Social Description’), and numerous links to other related sites like Ancient World on the Web (with over 250 www‐sites) and to electronic journals. 2. http://virtualreligion.net/vri/ Its Biblical Studies: Social World of the Bible provides links to electronic journals and other related sites, some with photos. 3. http://sites.google.com/site/biblicalstudiesresources/ This site has a Hebrew Bible Resources category that includes electronic journals and the homepages of three Hebrew Bible sociologists: Don Benjamin, David J. A. Clines, and Philip Davies, with some of their articles. 4. http://courses.missouristate.edu/VictorMatthews/ Homepage of a preeminent Hebrew Bible anthropologist and Ancient Near Eastern expert that contains bibliographies and numerous links to other related sites and to electronic journals. 5. http://www.socioweb.com/ The Socio Web has links to great sites that often have articles on various sociological topics and social theorists. 6. http://www.trinity.edu/mkearl/index.html A Sociological Tour Through Cyberspace is an amazing site that is colourful and filled with articles about and guides to various aspects of sociology and links to numerous related sites. 7. http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/w3virtsoclib/index.html WWW Virtual Library: Sociology: Theories has wonderful articles on the primary theorists in sociology and related resources. 8. http://www.denverseminary.edu/dj/articles2005/0100/0101.php#trans The Denver Journal has various related resources, and its Annotated Old Testament Bibliography: Sociological and Anthropological Studies is helpful. Annotated Reading List 1. Weber, Max. Ancient Judaism. Translated by Hans H. Gerth and Don Martindale. New York: Free, 1952 So fortuitous for biblical sociologists, one of the fathers of sociology theorizes on the development of the Israelite religion from a comparative religion standpoint; a classic. It is not the easiest read, so it should be reserved for graduate students. 2. Gottwald, Norman K. The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 bce. Paperback ed. The Biblical Seminar. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999 The father of modern Hebrew Bible sociology draws on Durkheim, Weber, and especially Marx to trace the development of the early Israelite faith that sprang from a confederation of recently liberated peasants; another classic. Compare the following reviews: Bernhard W. Anderson ( Theology Today 38 [1981]: 107–8 – mainly critical); Robert R. Wilson ( Interpretation 38 [1982]: 71–4 – generally positive); Carol Meyers ( Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 [1981]: 104–9 – somewhat positive). 3. Gottwald, Norman K. The Hebrew Bible: A Brief Socio‐Literary Introduction. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009 This abridged version of the 1985 classic introduces the student broadly to biblical sociology and then applies it book by book to the Hebrew Bible. Compare the following reviews of the unabridged version: J. J. M. Roberts ( Theology Today 43 [1987]: 580–1 – generally negative); Robert Gnuse ( Currents in Theology and Mission 13 [1986]: 174–5 – generally positive). </jats:

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.

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.

Often, theological debates stand in the tension between idealist and realist perspectives. This is true too of a discussion in which I have participated on the Africanisation or contextualisation or relevance of the Bible in (South) Africa. In this debate I have at times been cast as being opposed to such Africanisation or contextualisation or relevance. Such criticism is mistaken. I am, however, critical of too idealistic views on the ways in which Old Testament research can impact African problems. In an interdisciplinary manner, the sociological concept of spiritual capital proves useful in illustrating my view. With this, I hope to be understood correctly and, more importantly, to contribute to greater realism concerning the relationship between research and societal problems. In that way, the Africanisation or contextualisation or relevance of the Bible in (South) Africa can become a greater reality. This is of increased importance in the post-secular time frame in which we currently find ourselves, in which the role of religion in the public sphere is again finding greater acceptance rather than being side-lined. On all counts, thus, the plight of the marginalised may be better served. Such broader acceptance of religion also demands that Bible scholarship takes full cognisance of the societal processes through which such upliftment can occur in reality. Therefore, en route to publication, this contribution is presented for critical consideration in three intellectual fora:��The Religious and Spiritual Capital session, XVIIIth International Sociological Association World Congress of Sociology (conference theme: �Facing an unequal world�), Yokohama, Japan, 13�19 July 2014.� The Old Testament Society of South Africa Annual Conference (conference theme: �Studying the Old Testament in South Africa, from 1994 to 2014 and beyond�), University of Johannesburg, 03�05 September 2014.� The Research Day of the Department of Biblical and Ancient Studies, University of South Africa, 25 September 2014, at which colleague E. Farisani�s University of South Africa inaugural lecture of 03 September 2013, �Dispelling myths about African biblical hermeneutics: The role of current trends in African biblical hermeneutics in the post-apartheid South Africa� was re-presented as �Current trends and patterns in African Biblical Hermeneutics in postapartheid South Africa: Myth or Fact?� for the purpose of critical discussion.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The intersection of Theology and Sociology adds concrete avenues for furthering the cause of the Africanisation of Biblical Studies.

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

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'.

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

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.

The neo-prophetic churches, the most recent expression of Pentecostalism, currently experiencing stupendous growth, do more contextual or inculturation hermeneutics than did earlier Pentecostal movements. They have, as their pillars, African biblical hermeneutics (shaped by elements in the African context) and global Pentecostal hermeneutical paradigms (also shaped by Pentecostal beliefs). In relying on these two pillars, they have appropriated western biblical hermeneutical tools, categories and methods in the African milieu; hence their appeal to a large number of contemporary African Christians.

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

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.