African Biblical Studies: Unmasking Embedded Racism and Colonialism in Biblical Studies

by Andrew Mutua Mbuvi

Publisher:

T&T Clark

, 2022

Overview

Andrew M. Mbuvi makes the case for African biblical studies as a vibrant and important emerging distinct discipline, while also using its postcolonial optic to critique biblical studies for its continued underlying racially and imperialistically motivated tendencies. Mbuvi argues that the emergence of biblical studies as a discipline in the West coincides with, and benefits from, the establishment of the colonial project that included African colonization. At the heart of the colonial project was the Bible, not only as ferried by missionaries, who often espoused racialized views, to convert “heathens in the distant lands,” but as the text used in the racialized justification of the colonial violence. Interpretive approaches established within these racist and colonialist matrices continue to dominate the discipline, perpetuating racialized interpretive methodology and frameworks.

On these grounds, Mbuvi makes the case that the continued marginalization of non-western approaches is a reflection of the continuing colonialist structure and presuppositions in the discipline of biblical studies. African Biblical Studies not only exposes and critiques these persistent oppressive and subjugating tendencies but showcases how African postcolonial methodologies and studies, that prioritize readings from the perspective of the marginalized and oppressed, offer an alternative framework for the discipline. These readings, while destabilizing and undermining the predominantly white Euro-American approaches and their ingrained prejudices, and problematizing the biblical text itself, posit the need for biblical interpretation that is anti-colonial and anti-racist.

Key Features

• Holds that the ongoing marginalization of non-western views reflects the ongoing colonialist structure
• Posits the need for biblical interpretation that is anti-colonial and anti-racist
• Argues that the emergence of biblical studies as a Western discipline coincides with, and benefits from, the establishment of the colonial project

Contents

Part 1: The Bible, Colonialism, and Biblical Studies

• Introduction
• Colonialism and the European Enlightenment
• (Western) Biblical Studies and African Colonialism

Part II: The Bible, Colonial Encounters, and Unexpected Outcomes

• Bible Translation as Biblical Interpretation – The Colonial Bible
• The Bible and African Reality
• Emerging African Postcolonial Biblical Criticism

Part III: African Biblical Studies: Setting a Postcolonial Agenda

• Decolonizing the Bible: A Postcolonial Responses
• The Bible and Postcolonial African Literatures
• Re-Writing the Bible: Recasting the Colonial Texts
• Eschatology, Colonialism, and Mission: An African Critique of Linear Eschatologys
• “Ordinary Readers” and the Bible: Non-Academic Biblical Interpretations
• Gender, Sexuality, and the Bible In Africas
• Christology in Africa: “Who Do You Say That I Am?”
• Conclusion: Towards a Decolonized Biblical Studies

Product Details

• Title: African Biblical Studies
• Author: Andrew Mutua Mbuvi
• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Pages: 249
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• ISBNs: 9780567707710, 9780567707727, 9780567707741, 0567707717, 0567707725, 0567707741
• Resource ID: LLS:FRCNBBLCLST
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-11-13T18:46:01Z

About Andrew Mutua Mbuvi

Andrew M. Mbuvi is Visiting NEH Chair in Humanities and Associate Professor in the Religious Studies Department at Albright College, Pennsylvania, USA. He has been teaching in higher education for over two decades and has published several books, essays, and articles in the field of Biblical Studies, Postcolonial Biblical Interpretations, African Biblical Studies, and Race and violence in the Bible. His teaching experience has reshaped his research interests with an increased focus on issues of race, justice, freedom, and diversity. He places a strong emphasis on the role that race and religion (specifically the Bible) play in the establishment of Western academia, and the ongoing impact of this background on present constructions of religious belief and education in religious and non-religious institutions.

Mbuvi lives in Cheltenham, PA and is married to Dr. Amanda Mbuvi (also an academic); they have two children (tween/teen).