African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
The letters of Paul—especially the verse in Ephesians directing slaves to obey their masters—played an enormous role in promoting slavery and justifying it as a Christian practice. Yet despite this reality African Americans throughout history still utilized Paul extensively in their own work, responding to his theology and teachings in numerous—often starkly divergent and liberative—ways.
In the first book of its kind, Lisa Bowens takes a historical, theological, and biblical approach to explore interpretations of Paul within African American communities over the past few centuries. She surveys a wealth of primary sources from the early 1700s to the mid-twentieth century, including sermons, conversion stories, slave petitions, and autobiographies of ex-slaves, many of which introduce readers to previously unknown names in the history of New Testament interpretation. Along with their hermeneutical value, these texts also provide fresh documentation of Black religious life through wide swaths of American history. African American Readings of Paul promises to change the landscape of Pauline studies and fill an important gap in the rising field of reception history.
- Provides a historical, theological, and biblical approach
- Explores interpretations of Paul within African American communities over the past few centuries
- Features documentation of Black religious life through wide swaths of American history
- Introduction: African American Pauline Hermeneutics
- Early Eighteenth Century to Early Nineteenth Century
- Mid-Nineteenth Century to Late Nineteenth Century
- Late Nineteenth Century to First Half of Twentieth Century
- Pauline Language in Enslaved Conversion Experiences and Call Narratives
- African American Pauline Hermeneutics and the Art of Biblical Interpretation
Top Highlights
“The third reason for the co-optation of Christianity by the powerful rests upon Paul, who has been given undue weight in the course of Christian history and thought.” (Page 232)
“The practice of slavery, which separates family members from one another, violates all the household admonitions set forth by the apostle. Slavery, these petitioners exclaim, impedes husbands from loving their wives, wives from submitting to their husbands, and children from obeying and being instructed by their parents.” (Page 23)
“Though Hammon is not as radical in his use of Paul as some other black writers, he does employ the apostle in a number of important, subversive ways: (1) to underscore black agency, (2) to critique the white wealthy and powerful, (3) to make the charge that whites were under satanic influence, (4) to assert blacks as rational human beings, (5) to proclaim blacks’ humanity and identity as sons of God, not Ham, and (6) to lament over his fellow enslaved Africans. To dare to interpret Paul in such ways in public places and spaces secures Hammon’s position as one of the important starting points for African American Pauline hermeneutics.” (Pages 48–49)
“In addition, the apostle’s emphasis on sin as a power resonates with some of the interpreters covered in this monograph, for they see the cosmic nature of sin creating systemic injustices in the nation. Against one of the dominant understandings of their time, in which sin was seen as merely personal, between an individual and God, these interpreters recognized that sin was not just individual but social as well.” (Page 298)
- Title: African American Readings of Paul: Reception, Resistance, and Transformation
- Author: Lisa M. Bowens
- Publisher: Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 2020
- Pages: 384
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Biblical Interpretation
Lisa M. Bowens is associate professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. She is also the author of An Apostle in Battle: Paul and Spiritual Warfare in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10.