Proceedings of the 10th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Academic Reading of the Bible in Africa Joseph Ogbonnaya Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
Dr. Joseph Ogbonnaya
ABSTRACT:
The significant contribution of the academic study of the Bible in Africa is the contextual, inculturation/liberation hermeneutics in the light of the patterns of African thought, that is, the African worldview. This paper explores the various dimensions of the academic study in Africa: the classical, inculturation, womanist (feminist), post-colonial, liberation, biblical hermeneutics. It engages such significant African hermeneuts like Justin S. Ukpong, Musa W. Dube, Teresa Okure, and Gerald O. West. These insist on integrated reading of the Bible that recognizes the importance of the diachronic, historical-critical method, as well as the contexts of the various African peoples, and the synchronic, theological reading of the Bible in its final form, as the Word of God. Academic study of the Bible seeks to bridge the gap between the ordinary African readers (the poor, the marginalized, non-biblical experts), ordinary African women, and the academic scholarly interpretation of the Bible. And so, the paper argues that academic biblical scholarship must not be divorced from the concerns of the ordinary African readers of the Bible. Both should inform the other for academic reading of the Bible to be relevant. It therefore suggests changes in the academic study of the Bible to inform critical study by ordinary readers of the Bible.
keywords: Bible, hermeneutics, historical-critical method, synchronic method, ordinary readers.