On Comparability
A Critical Evaluation of Comparative “Background” Studies between Biblical and Contemporary Southern African Contexts
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Chris L. de Wet in
Current site
Google Scholar
This study examines the instance of comparatism in African biblical hermeneutics, particularly the comparison of ancient cultural contexts with modern ‘African’ contexts. The study critically interrogates the conceptual dynamics of this process, and aims to discern some possible power strategies in this process. A definitive sample of studies on ancient backgrounds and African contexts are examined and the process of comparatism is delineated. Thereafter, the study traces the development of biblical-historical “background” studies in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and thereafter makes some suggestions in the supplementation of background studies in the (Southern-) African hermeneutical enterprise, namely a focus not so much on postcoloniality, but on current colonising enterprises and a more critical operation of historical and cultural comparatism.
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2
Bruce Lincoln, Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars: Critical Explorations in the History of Religions (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 121.
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3
Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube, eds., The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
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5
Eric Anum, “Comparative Readings of the Bible in Africa: Some Concerns,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 457–473.
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9
Bernice Letlhare, “Corporate Personality in Botswana and Ancient Israel: A Religio-Cultural Comparison,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 474–480.
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11
Temba L.J. Mafico, “The Biblical God of the Fathers and the African Ancestors,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 481–489.
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15
Elijah Mahlangu, “The Ancient Mediterranean Values of Honour and Shame as a Hermeneutical Procedure: A Social-Scientific Criticism in an African Perspective,” Verbum et Ecclesia 22, no. 1 (2001): 85–101.
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16
Halvor Moxnes, “Honour and Shame,” in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation (ed. Richard L. Rohrbaugh; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1996), 36.
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17
Mahlangu, “Honour and Shame as a Hermeneutical Procedure,” 89.
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18
Bruce Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 28–30.
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19
Mahlangu, “Honour and Shame as a Hermeneutical Procedure,” 100.
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20
Cornelius Olowola, African Traditional Religion and the Christian Faith (Achimota: African Christian Press, 1993), 30.
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22
Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978), 89.
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25
Richard Price, “Historiography, Narrative, and the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of British Studies 35, no. 2 (1996): 220–256.
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26
Asa Briggs, The Age of Improvement, 1783–1867 (Harlow: Longman, 1959).
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31
Michel Foucault, “On the Ways of Writing History,” in Aesthetics: Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984 (trans. James Faubion, Robert Hurley, et al; London: Penguin, 1994), 281–282.
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34
Johan Huizinga, Cultuurhistorische verkenningen (Haarlem: H.D. Tjeenk Willink, 1929).
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35
Peter Burke, What is Cultural History? (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), 6.
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40
François Furet, Penser la révolution Française (Paris: Gallimard, 1978).
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41
Denis Richet, La France moderne: L’esprit des institutions (Paris: Editions Flammarion, 2009).
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42
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 à 1324 (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).
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43
Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (trans. Ben Brewster; transcribed Andy Blunden; Paris: Maspero, 1972).
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44
Most notably their works: Paul Veyne, Le pain et le cirque: Sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique (Paris: Le Seuil, 1976), and idem, “La famille et l’amour sous le haut-Empire Romain,” Annales 33 (1978): 35–63; Peter R.L. Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971): 80–101, and Peter R.L. Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women & Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1988), among many others.
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45
Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 2004).
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46
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (trans. Charles Ruas; London: Routledge, 1970).
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47
Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in The Essential Foucault: Selections from Essential Works of Michel Foucault, 1954–1984 (eds. Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose; New York, N.Y.: The New Press, 2003), 351–369.
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50
Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (trans. Gayatri C. Spivak; Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998).
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53
Okot P’Bitek, African Religions in Western Scholarship (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1970).
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54
John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophy (Oxford: Heinemann, 1969).
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55
P’Bitek, African Religions, 80; cf. also: Anum, “Comparative Readings,” 470.
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57
Mahlangu, “Honour and Shame as a Hermeneutical Procedure,” 86.
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58
John S. Mbiti, New Testament Eschatology in an African Background (London: Oxford University Press, 1971).
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60
Robert Wafawanaka, “African Perspectives on Poverty in the Hebrew Law Codes,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube (eds); Leiden: Brill, 2000), 490–497.
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61
Gerhard van den Heever, “Redescribing Graeco-Roman Antiquity: On Religion and History of Religion,” Religion & Theology 12, no. 3–4 (2006): 211–238.
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62
Moses I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1999).
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63
Walter Scheidel, The Ancient Economy: Recent Approaches (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002).
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64
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Rome’s Cultural Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
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65
Kathy Ehrensperger, “Speaking Greek Under Rome: Paul, the Power of Language and the Language of Power,” Neotestamentica 46, no. 1 (2012): 13.
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69
Hamid Dabashi, The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (London: Zed Books, 2012), 10.
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70
Paul Virilio, The Lost Dimension (trans. Daniel Moshenberg; New York: Semiotext(e), 1991), 119–142.
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72
Gerrie F. Snyman, “African Hermeneutics’ ‘Outing’ of Whiteness,” Neotestamentica 42, no. 1 (2008): 93–118.
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73
Gerrie F. Snyman, “The Body, Rhetoric and Postcolonial Criticism,” Religion & Theology 1, no. 1&2 (2002): 63–88.
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74
Gerald O. West, “Mapping African Biblical Interpretation: A Tentative Sketch,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 29–53.
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75
Knut Holter, “Old Testament Scholarship in Sub-Saharan Africa North of the Limpopo River,” in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends (eds. Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 54–71.
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On Comparability
A Critical Evaluation of Comparative “Background” Studies between Biblical and Contemporary Southern African Contexts
In: Religion and TheologySearch for other papers by Chris L. de Wet in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This study examines the instance of comparatism in African biblical hermeneutics, particularly the comparison of ancient cultural contexts with modern ‘African’ contexts. The study critically interrogates the conceptual dynamics of this process, and aims to discern some possible power strategies in this process. A definitive sample of studies on ancient backgrounds and African contexts are examined and the process of comparatism is delineated. Thereafter, the study traces the development of biblical-historical “background” studies in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and thereafter makes some suggestions in the supplementation of background studies in the (Southern-) African hermeneutical enterprise, namely a focus not so much on postcoloniality, but on current colonising enterprises and a more critical operation of historical and cultural comparatism.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 319 | 43 | 16 |
| Full Text Views | 186 | 2 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 15 | 2 | 1 |