Session 6

The Bible in Africana Life

Is one of many foundational texts found in African and Black Diasporan settings NRSV version and tools http://www.anova.org/sev/

Others include the following:

• the Qu’ran http://www.al-islam.org/quran/

• Talmud http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm#t01

• Tao Te Ching http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/rel/tao/TaoTeChing.html

• Book of Mormon http://scriptures.lds.org/bm/contents

• and other sacred texts from around the world

Given the major role that Christianity has played in shaping Western ideas, the Bible can be seen as perhaps the most important text in the American Diaspora

Its impact on Black life has been mixed - it has been a source of community stabilization and destabilization

Africana Biblical Interpretation

1. Heterogeneous rather than monolithic

2. Conditioned by theological norms within faith communities and socio-political exigencies

3. Tends to place a very high value on the authority of the Bible

4. Bible is seen as conversation partner

5. Expositors work within and outside of ecclesial structures

6. Biblical authority and social realities simultaneously limit and give license to creative interpretation

Problematizing Biblical Values

Scholars have begun to raise significant questions about the relationship between Africana peoples and sacred texts. Some of the more intriguing are the following:

1. Why should African Americans read themselves into a sacred text not of their own creation? -- see, for example, Vincent Wimbush's article "Introduction: Reading Darkness, Reading Scriptures," in his edited volume African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures (New York, 2000): 1-43.

2. Should 21st century Christians find a creative means to honor the text of lived experience while reading critically and faithfully that of the Bible?

3. Should African Americans read the Bible primarily from an Afrocentric point of view that reflects an Africana ethos? -- see, for example, the "Introduction" and essays in Randall C. Bailey (ed.), Yet With a Steady Beat: Contemporary U.S. Afrocentric Biblical Interpretation. Semeia Studies 42 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003).

4. In what ways may interpretive media be created to contextualize the Bible in light of Africana experience? - this question informs the work of the African-American Biblical Hermeneutics Section of the Society of Biblical Literature -- see www.hrpj.com/aabhs.htm.