African Hermeneutics

Elizabeth Mburu

Description

Interpretation of Scripture occurs within one’s worldview and culture, which enhances our understanding and ability to apply Scripture in the world. However, few books address Bible interpretation from an African perspective and no other textbook uses the intercultural approach found here. This book brings both an awareness of how one’s African context gives a lens to hermeneutics, but also how to interpret texts with integrity despite our cultural influences.
African Hermeneutics was born of Prof Elizabeth Mburu’s frustration at only having textbooks that predominantly followed a Western worldview to teach her African students. Mburu’s approach to hermeneutics is one that begins in Africa, moving from the known to the unknown as students learn to apply her ‘four-legged stool model’ to biblical texts, namely examining: the parallels to African contexts, the theological context, the literary context, and the historical and cultural context. This textbook will help students and pastors interpret Scripture with greater accuracy in their own context, allowing for faithful application in their local contexts.

Informations

• Publié par: Langham Creative Projects
• Date de parution: 28 février 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 3
• EAN13: 9781783685387
• Langue: English

Extrait

It is my privilege to commend this helpful and readable work. Communicating clearly and logically developing observations from African life and the biblical text, Elizabeth Mburu articulates a sound and fruitful African hermeneutic. She skilfully compares African and biblical worldviews, offering foundations for contextualization in a way that brings together the interpretive horizons. She also draws on the most useful, proven approaches, such as attention to genre, narrative development, and historical context.
Craig S. Keener, PhD
F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical Studies,
Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, USA
African Christianity has often been described as a “mile long and an inch deep,” “Sunday Christianity,” “Shallow Christianity,” “syncretized Christianity,” etc. The author of this exciting book, African Hermeneutics , has aptly referred to African Christianity as “dichotomized Christianity.” To remove this split Christianity, Mburu proposes that African Christians must contextualize the interpretation of the Bible by using known African categories of interpretation. Her proposal is new, fresh, engaging and potentially revolutionary and paradigmatic. In my mind, this is a must-read for all African theological educators, missionaries, students and pastors.
Samuel Waje Kunhiyop, PhD
Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics,
ECWA Theological Seminary, Kagoro, Nigeria
Author, African Christian Theology
African Hermeneutics by Professor Elizabeth Mburu is a comprehensive masterpiece in modern African biblical scholarship. It is broad, insightful, refreshing, innovative, creative, contextual and critical as it makes the African worldview central to making hermeneutics a biblical science relevant to Africa. The choice of “African worldview” as a worthy tool in biblical interpretation was deliberate, because of its value and significance in creating new biblical and contextual hermeneutics and interpretations. This new method will certainly become a sought-after model of biblical hermeneutics and African biblical interpretation. To this end, this book provides a fodder to enrich biblical and theological discourse in Africa.
Mburu has demonstrated that even as a young biblical scholar, she can use her new, emerging, creative and innovative hermeneutical skills, criticisms and scholarship to rejuvenate and impact contemporary biblical scholarship. This new book will certainly redirect the course of biblical scholarship, especially in Africa, where this new approach will resonate with African emphasis upon the traditional value of storytelling as a sure and valid tool of biblical interpretation. This book in the course of time will certainly mark out Elizabeth Mburu as an outstanding African biblical scholar in the making. Her commendable scholarship should encourage and motivate younger African scholars to aspire to greater heights in biblical and theological scholarship.
Yusufu Turaki, PhD
Professor of Theology and Social Ethics,
ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos, Nigeria
Elizabeth Mburu lays down principles for a four-legged stool model of an intercultural biblical hermeneutics in Africa and applies it to both Old Testament and New Testament texts. Her contribution deserves close attention from any reader who is interested in the development of intercultural hermeneutics in Africa.
Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, PhD
Global Translation Adviser, United Bible Societies, Kenya
Professor of New Testament and Bible Translation Studies,
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

African Hermeneutics
Elizabeth Mburu

© 2019 Elizabeth Mburu
Published 2019 by HippoBooks, an imprint of ACTS and Langham Publishing.
Africa Christian Textbooks (ACTS), TCNN, PMB 2020, Bukuru 930008, Plateau
State, Nigeria. www.actsnigeria.org
Langham Publishing, PO Box 296, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 9WZ, UK
www.langhampublishing.org
ISBNs:
978-1-78368-464-9 Print
978-1-78368-538-7 ePub
978-1-78368-539-4 Mobi
978-1-78368-540-0 PDF
Elizabeth Mburu has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-78368-464-9
Cover & Book Design: projectluz.com
The publishers of this book actively support theological dialogue and an author’s right to publish but do not necessarily endorse the views and opinions set forth here or in works referenced within this publication, nor guarantee technical and grammatical correctness. The publishers do not accept any responsibility or liability to persons or property as a consequence of the reading, use or interpretation of its published content.

Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB

This book is dedicated to my husband, Caxton, and our three children, Bryan, Michelle and Paul. They have been an invaluable support throughout the research and writing of this book, often offering helpful suggestions and testing the material.
Contents

Cover


Foreword


Preface


Acknowledgements


Abbreviations


Bible Translations and Dictionaries


Books of the Bible


Part I General Principles of Hermeneutics


1 Introduction


The Challenge: Dichotomized Lives


The Solution: A Contextualized Hermeneutic


An Example of Contextualization


What Next?


2 The African Worldview : Theological Aspects


What Is a Worldview ?


Is a Worldview Individual or Communal ?


Is There an African Worldview ?


Ultimate Reality


External Reality


Human Relationships


Questions for Review


3 The African Worldview: Philosophical aspects


Knowledge


Morality


Suffering


History and Time


The Arts


Conclusion


Questions for Review


4 An African Hermeneutic: A Four-Legged Stool


Leg 1: Parallels to the African Context


Leg 2: Theological Context


Leg 3: Literary Context


Leg 4: Historical and Cultural Context


Seat: Application


Conclusion


Questions for Review


Part II SPECIFIC PRINCIPLES OF HERMENEUTICS


5 Understanding the Context of the Bible


The Importance of Studying the Bible


The Old Testament


The New Testament


Conclusion


6 Interpreting Stories


The Story Genre


African Stories


Stories in the Bible


7 Interpreting Wisdom


The Wisdom Genre


Africa and Wisdom


Wisdom Literature in the Bible


8 Interpreting Songs


The Song Genre


Song in Africa


Song in the Bible


9 Interpreting Letters


The Letter Genre


Africa and Letters


Letters in the Bible


10 Conclusion


A Backward Look


What Next?


Further Reading


Bibliography

Endnotes

Index
Foreword
Without communication there cannot be a relationship, and without relevance in communication there would not be meaningful relationship.
The African believer has been invited into a relationship with God, as expressed in the Scriptures. Yet the Scriptures have remained to a great extent without the desired impact. This raises the question whether those of us who have been called to teach or preach the Scriptures have managed to cross the boundary between the content of the Bible and the relationship to the everyday life of the African Christian.
Professor Elizabeth Mburu does not only raise this question in African Hermeneutics , she also provides a way forward on how to achieve this. She lays down for us a methodology that certainly will make a difference.
The four legs of a stool approach, as Mburu proposes, guards against syncretism while at the same time giving the African worldview the place needed if the Scriptures are to be made relevant to an African’s everyday life experiences and challenges.
We cannot but agree with the author that a stool that is missing one of its legs will not serve the purpose it is meant for. The African preacher and teacher needs to appreciate the many contributions (most of them from the West) in the a