Professor David Tuesday Adamo's Biblical Scholarship on Women: Reflections from an African-South African Mosadi

Madipoane Masenya

doi:10.17159/2312-3621/2021/v34n2a15

Abstract

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?

Highlights

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 bosadi framework was coined from my commitment to making “Africa” a hermeneutical lens[6] for reading the biblical text
As could already be gleaned from the preceding discussion on the African biblical woman as wife, the women influenced the lives of their husbands, whether for good or for bad

Summary

A INTRODUCTION

Professor David Tuesday Adamo’s scholarship began to make an impact on the present author in the late 1980s. Elsewhere in engaging the role of the Hagar character[3] for present day communities, Adamo and Eghwubare could argue: “How would African people hear the stories of courage, perseverance, and faith that earned African Biblical women a place in salvation history if African biblical women are not identified?4 Adamo lauds Potiphar’s wife, for having contributed, albeit in a problematic way to God’s plan for God’s people in Egypt: “The woman is pivotal to the survival of the Hebrews in Egypt Her seduction initiated the event that brought the family of Jacob to Egypt, setting the stage for one of the major themes of the entire Bible, the Exodus or deliverance.”[5]. A brief discussion of the bosadi approach is in order

B WHAT NOW OF THE BOSADI APPROACH?

The African Biblical Woman

C READING ADAMO’S WOMEN MATERIAL IN PRESENT-DAY SOUTH AFRICA

D CONCLUSION

F BIBLIOGRAPHY