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Reading the Bible Around the World: A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics
Parish Clergy Award
It's an exciting time to be reading the Bible. As we increasingly encounter readers with perspectives, experiences, and cultures different from our own, we can incorporate new ideas and approaches to interpreting Scripture. When diverse interpretations from various social locations are gathered together, we gain new vistas and a fuller image of the text.
In Reading the Bible Around the World, a crosscultural team of scholars describes and workshops global readings in biblical interpretation, focusing on passages in both the Old and New Testaments. By presenting a range of readings from different regions and people groups, with particular attention to marginalized groups, the authors demonstrate the importance of contextually sensitive approaches. They help us build up key values for reading Scripture in the twenty-first self-awareness, other-awareness, and true dialogue.
Who we are shapes how we read. Guided by these expert teachers, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the influence of their own social location and how to keep growing in biblical wisdom by reading alongside the global Christian community.
It's an exciting time to be reading the Bible. As we increasingly encounter readers with perspectives, experiences, and cultures different from our own, we can incorporate new ideas and approaches to interpreting Scripture. When diverse interpretations from various social locations are gathered together, we gain new vistas and a fuller image of the text.
In Reading the Bible Around the World, a crosscultural team of scholars describes and workshops global readings in biblical interpretation, focusing on passages in both the Old and New Testaments. By presenting a range of readings from different regions and people groups, with particular attention to marginalized groups, the authors demonstrate the importance of contextually sensitive approaches. They help us build up key values for reading Scripture in the twenty-first self-awareness, other-awareness, and true dialogue.
Who we are shapes how we read. Guided by these expert teachers, readers will gain a deeper understanding of the influence of their own social location and how to keep growing in biblical wisdom by reading alongside the global Christian community.
- GenresTheology
153 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 13, 2023
Summary: A globally representative team of authors discuss the diverse social locations of different cultures that shape their reading of scripture, developing the student’s awareness of the importance of context in biblical interpretation.
There was a time (and I was influenced by this tradition) where we learned to study scripture with Euro-American interpretive tools often labelled the historical-critical method. It was an attempt to bring a kind of scientific precision to the study of texts that would lead to “assured” interpretations that were privileged above those of other interpreters because they arose from a supposedly rigorous process. Yet such interpretive work was done by people who often were blind to the way their worldview shaped their conclusions, including such things as a radical skepticism of the miraculous or the spiritual world. It was also blind to ways one’s position as part of a dominant, colonizing culture shaped one’s reading of the social and ethnic dimensions of the text. Most of this was also done by men who brought the prejudices of their gender to how they read passages about women and relations between the sexes.
The introduction of this work discusses the sea change that has occurred in biblical interpretation as scholars from every part of the world have engaged the biblical text, bringing the unique sensitivities of their cultural contexts. Women are joining men. Latino/a, Asian, and African scholars are joining Euro-Americans in studying the biblical text. The growing awareness of social location and how this shapes interpretation has led to rich conversations about the different ways we may read the biblical text, the different nuances or features we notice, and the particular applications we make shaped by our context.
In the following chapters, interpreters from different cultures describe and model what this looks like. Each describes particular interpretive emphases that shape study of the biblical text that arise in their cultural context. Then they demonstrate how this works out in their reading of Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the loving neighbor who happens to be a Samaritan, and their reading of an Old Testament passage of their choice.
Frederico Alfredo Roth discusses Latin American approaches, and the influence of liberationist approaches, a concern for the poor and the migrant, and for praxis have in approaching texts. Alice Yafeh-Deigh discusses colonial and post-colonial influences as well as tribalism and patriarchal concerns in reading texts from an African perspective. Justin Marc Smith discusses classic approaches of Euro-Americans, the anti-supernaturalism underlying many readings, and how the post-modern turn brought awareness of the social location of readers and growing self-awareness to Euro-American interpreters. Kirsten Oh recounts the intersection of orientalist, anglicist, and nativist readings of scripture, as well as the influence of underlying Confucianism and the current post-colonial context. Kay Higuera Smith rounds out the discussion with an exploration of the situation of diasporic peoples, often leading to creolized or hybridized readings.
It was more difficult to compare the different readings of Old Testament passages because each chose unique passages (and one did not include this). The Latin American reading of Deuteronomy 24:17-22 was especially aware of the treatment of the marginalized in this passage. The African reading of Esther emphasized the strategies both women used to subvert patriarchal dominance, an issue also wrestled with by African women. The Euro-American reading of David and Bathsheba looks at this primarily from the perspective of David and David’s sin, not seeing the incident through Bathsheba’s eyes. The Asian reading of Ruth focuses on issues of Ruth as “model minority,” combined with her invisibility at the end of the narrative, while also recognizing her distinctive character of hesed.
What was more interesting to me was the reading of Luke 10:25-37. While there were nuances of difference, particularly in application, I was struck by how similar all the readings were. All were aware of the Jew-Samaritan dynamic and drew on this in the discussion of neighboring. Yet the combined discussion offered a much richer reading of a familiar story. It suggested to me that reading with our global neighbors, when it is focused carefully on the same text leads, not to radically disparate readings, but rather fuller readings exposing aspects of the biblical text we may overlook. For example, the Latin American approach raised the question of why the unsafeness of the Jericho road was tolerated. Isn’t addressing this also a matter of loving neighbor?
The subtitle of this book is “A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics.” I think this text accomplishes that task well. The overview of interpretive distinctions of different cultural contexts combined with examples, as well as reflection questions makes this a helpful text in an academic setting. It is also a helpful introduction, especially for North American Christians, to the growing global conversation about how we read scripture together. The suggestions for further reading allow one to go as far as one wants in that exploration. And what will one find? What is suggested here is a richer, deeper, and perhaps renewed engagement with scripture.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
There was a time (and I was influenced by this tradition) where we learned to study scripture with Euro-American interpretive tools often labelled the historical-critical method. It was an attempt to bring a kind of scientific precision to the study of texts that would lead to “assured” interpretations that were privileged above those of other interpreters because they arose from a supposedly rigorous process. Yet such interpretive work was done by people who often were blind to the way their worldview shaped their conclusions, including such things as a radical skepticism of the miraculous or the spiritual world. It was also blind to ways one’s position as part of a dominant, colonizing culture shaped one’s reading of the social and ethnic dimensions of the text. Most of this was also done by men who brought the prejudices of their gender to how they read passages about women and relations between the sexes.
The introduction of this work discusses the sea change that has occurred in biblical interpretation as scholars from every part of the world have engaged the biblical text, bringing the unique sensitivities of their cultural contexts. Women are joining men. Latino/a, Asian, and African scholars are joining Euro-Americans in studying the biblical text. The growing awareness of social location and how this shapes interpretation has led to rich conversations about the different ways we may read the biblical text, the different nuances or features we notice, and the particular applications we make shaped by our context.
In the following chapters, interpreters from different cultures describe and model what this looks like. Each describes particular interpretive emphases that shape study of the biblical text that arise in their cultural context. Then they demonstrate how this works out in their reading of Luke 10:25-37, the parable of the loving neighbor who happens to be a Samaritan, and their reading of an Old Testament passage of their choice.
Frederico Alfredo Roth discusses Latin American approaches, and the influence of liberationist approaches, a concern for the poor and the migrant, and for praxis have in approaching texts. Alice Yafeh-Deigh discusses colonial and post-colonial influences as well as tribalism and patriarchal concerns in reading texts from an African perspective. Justin Marc Smith discusses classic approaches of Euro-Americans, the anti-supernaturalism underlying many readings, and how the post-modern turn brought awareness of the social location of readers and growing self-awareness to Euro-American interpreters. Kirsten Oh recounts the intersection of orientalist, anglicist, and nativist readings of scripture, as well as the influence of underlying Confucianism and the current post-colonial context. Kay Higuera Smith rounds out the discussion with an exploration of the situation of diasporic peoples, often leading to creolized or hybridized readings.
It was more difficult to compare the different readings of Old Testament passages because each chose unique passages (and one did not include this). The Latin American reading of Deuteronomy 24:17-22 was especially aware of the treatment of the marginalized in this passage. The African reading of Esther emphasized the strategies both women used to subvert patriarchal dominance, an issue also wrestled with by African women. The Euro-American reading of David and Bathsheba looks at this primarily from the perspective of David and David’s sin, not seeing the incident through Bathsheba’s eyes. The Asian reading of Ruth focuses on issues of Ruth as “model minority,” combined with her invisibility at the end of the narrative, while also recognizing her distinctive character of hesed.
What was more interesting to me was the reading of Luke 10:25-37. While there were nuances of difference, particularly in application, I was struck by how similar all the readings were. All were aware of the Jew-Samaritan dynamic and drew on this in the discussion of neighboring. Yet the combined discussion offered a much richer reading of a familiar story. It suggested to me that reading with our global neighbors, when it is focused carefully on the same text leads, not to radically disparate readings, but rather fuller readings exposing aspects of the biblical text we may overlook. For example, the Latin American approach raised the question of why the unsafeness of the Jericho road was tolerated. Isn’t addressing this also a matter of loving neighbor?
The subtitle of this book is “A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics.” I think this text accomplishes that task well. The overview of interpretive distinctions of different cultural contexts combined with examples, as well as reflection questions makes this a helpful text in an academic setting. It is also a helpful introduction, especially for North American Christians, to the growing global conversation about how we read scripture together. The suggestions for further reading allow one to go as far as one wants in that exploration. And what will one find? What is suggested here is a richer, deeper, and perhaps renewed engagement with scripture.
____________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.
September 28, 2022
Reviewed by: Mary Lou Codman-Wilson, PhD., Pastoral Psychology, Psychological Anthropology, Christian Education and Buddhism.
Review:
Reading the Bible Around the World brings a needed global Biblical perspective to how the Bible is interpreted from a variety of different contexts. “This multilayered approach has liberated bible readings from a certain theological and interpretational myopia” (p. 100). Such an approach meets the contemporary challenge of our world which is no longer monolithic and needs to be freed from the bondage to Eurocentric “prescribed” interpretations of scripture. In the book this task is approached by scholars from a Latin American, African, European, Asian, and Diasporic approach interpret the same biblical story of the Good Samaritan from within their contexts. Their diverse interpretations provide additional depth and challenging applications to a familiar text many have only seen from one perspective. In addition, at the end of each chapter probing questions direct readers to critically evaluate these interpretations in comparison with their own “normative” analysis – i.e.,
· What are the distinctive marks of each of these reading angles? (p.15)
· What seems to be the most promising aspect about contextual approaches and why? (p.15)
· What does a Latin American reading teach us about one’s responsibility toward vulnerable groups? (p.37)
· Does your culture exclude anyone based on the demographic they represent? How might you work with your community to confront explicit or blatant prejudice? (p.71)
· How might we experience this parable of the loving neighbor if we read it through the eyes of the Samaritan? (p.89)
· What are one or two “Jericho roads” or systems of injustice and power inequity in your contexts? What are one or two ways you can disrupt that system toward transformation? (p.114)
· Does your family history include a story about migration, exile or diaspora? How has that story shaped the way you think about your own identity? (p.137)
The book’s authors all adhere to the central challenge of the book: “the whole picture of reading the Bible may only be possible if manifold interpretations from various social locations are gathered together in a kaleidoscope of readings. . . When the guardians of culture are the only ones who have a voice in interpreting Scriptures, then those passages that highlight the plight of the poor and the sojourners get overlooked, ignored, suppressed or viewed as potentially dangerous.” (pp136-137). Amen.
This book is a needed corrective that can “unseat Western centricism, the end of the universalization of Western theology and [provide] the inclusion of various perspectives and voices of previously marginalized groups. (pp.115-116).
5 stars
Excerpts:
“In this [Asian] post -colonial reading of the prodigal son, the classical perspective of the benevolent father is exchanged for the frustrated and oppressed son whose life reflects the patriarchal dominance of Asian parental control” (p. 104).
“The biblical God is the God of the oppressed, and Jesus Christ is the supreme reference for God’s preferential option for the poor and the oppressed through his life, death and resurrection: this option for the poor and the marginalized becomes the hermeneutical key in liberation hermeneutics” (p. 107).
By portraying the Samaritan as the hospitable other, Jesus sets himself up as a model for transgressing stereotypical boundaries. His admonition to the Jewish lawyer to “go and do likewise” . . .is a moral challenge across all ethnic groups.. . He presents a praxis-oriented lifestyle as a Christ-centered model of discipleship rooted in the double commandment of love for God and for neighbor” (p. 53).
Review:
Reading the Bible Around the World brings a needed global Biblical perspective to how the Bible is interpreted from a variety of different contexts. “This multilayered approach has liberated bible readings from a certain theological and interpretational myopia” (p. 100). Such an approach meets the contemporary challenge of our world which is no longer monolithic and needs to be freed from the bondage to Eurocentric “prescribed” interpretations of scripture. In the book this task is approached by scholars from a Latin American, African, European, Asian, and Diasporic approach interpret the same biblical story of the Good Samaritan from within their contexts. Their diverse interpretations provide additional depth and challenging applications to a familiar text many have only seen from one perspective. In addition, at the end of each chapter probing questions direct readers to critically evaluate these interpretations in comparison with their own “normative” analysis – i.e.,
· What are the distinctive marks of each of these reading angles? (p.15)
· What seems to be the most promising aspect about contextual approaches and why? (p.15)
· What does a Latin American reading teach us about one’s responsibility toward vulnerable groups? (p.37)
· Does your culture exclude anyone based on the demographic they represent? How might you work with your community to confront explicit or blatant prejudice? (p.71)
· How might we experience this parable of the loving neighbor if we read it through the eyes of the Samaritan? (p.89)
· What are one or two “Jericho roads” or systems of injustice and power inequity in your contexts? What are one or two ways you can disrupt that system toward transformation? (p.114)
· Does your family history include a story about migration, exile or diaspora? How has that story shaped the way you think about your own identity? (p.137)
The book’s authors all adhere to the central challenge of the book: “the whole picture of reading the Bible may only be possible if manifold interpretations from various social locations are gathered together in a kaleidoscope of readings. . . When the guardians of culture are the only ones who have a voice in interpreting Scriptures, then those passages that highlight the plight of the poor and the sojourners get overlooked, ignored, suppressed or viewed as potentially dangerous.” (pp136-137). Amen.
This book is a needed corrective that can “unseat Western centricism, the end of the universalization of Western theology and [provide] the inclusion of various perspectives and voices of previously marginalized groups. (pp.115-116).
5 stars
Excerpts:
“In this [Asian] post -colonial reading of the prodigal son, the classical perspective of the benevolent father is exchanged for the frustrated and oppressed son whose life reflects the patriarchal dominance of Asian parental control” (p. 104).
“The biblical God is the God of the oppressed, and Jesus Christ is the supreme reference for God’s preferential option for the poor and the oppressed through his life, death and resurrection: this option for the poor and the marginalized becomes the hermeneutical key in liberation hermeneutics” (p. 107).
By portraying the Samaritan as the hospitable other, Jesus sets himself up as a model for transgressing stereotypical boundaries. His admonition to the Jewish lawyer to “go and do likewise” . . .is a moral challenge across all ethnic groups.. . He presents a praxis-oriented lifestyle as a Christ-centered model of discipleship rooted in the double commandment of love for God and for neighbor” (p. 53).
December 2, 2023
Unfortunately, this book is an example of what many modern books on global hermeneutics consist of. This book contains 6 chapters that focus on different scholars and how they read Scripture in their context. One author comments that *insert group here* "must find new meanings in order to move ahead. If they do not, the Bible will cease to be meaningful at all". For the authors, meaning is not found in the text, but in the cultural context the reader is reading in.
Many are familiar with Sailhamer's distinction between reading into the event behind the text, rather than the text itself. This book falls into the dangerous category of focusing on the reader in front of the text and not the text itself.
Many are familiar with Sailhamer's distinction between reading into the event behind the text, rather than the text itself. This book falls into the dangerous category of focusing on the reader in front of the text and not the text itself.
January 13, 2023
This is a book that is directed at undergraduate students, from my reading, designed to introduce them to a global hermeneutics. The authors of the chapters teach at the same institution but represent different ethnic backgrounds. They speak to ways of engaging the Bible from within those ethnic dimensions.
I think it would be useful for conversations in local congregations with groups interested in learning different approaches to Scripture.
I think it would be useful for conversations in local congregations with groups interested in learning different approaches to Scripture.
February 28, 2023
Great primer on global contextual theologies!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews