Reading the Bible in post-apartheid South Africa: The contribution of Gerrie Snyman

Abstract

Modern historical criticism came to South Africa in the third decade of the twentieth century. However, analysing biblical books like human documents was not acceptable to church authorities. The historical-critical study of the Bible thus suffered a blow. It took four decades before some reformed biblical scholars felt at ease to reintroduce historical criticism. However, during the seventh decade of the twentieth century, overseas biblical scholars were already experimenting with the research tools of modern literary studies. Some South African biblical scholars followed suit, and soon narrative criticism and reader-response criticism were part of the package of methods for reading and studying the Bible. Gerrie Snyman was one of them, and reader-response criticism assisted him in reflecting on how he as a white Afrikaans speaking male, can continue doing biblical research in the post-apartheid era. He developed a hermeneutic of vulnerability and argued that readers should take responsibility for their readings of biblical texts.