Theology: New Testament and Related Literature: Postcolonial View

Known for its fresh approaches as well as for its complex theoretical foundations, postcolonialstudies is one of the most dynamic contributions to the field of biblical studies today. The presentbook is a pedagogically structured introduction to this emerging field for both scholar and student.

This volume foregrounds biblical interpretation within the African history of colonial contact, from North Atlantic slavery to the current era of globalization. It reads from the prolonged struggle for justice and of hybrid identities from multifaceted contexts, where the Bible coexists with African Indigenous Religions, Islam, and other religions. Showcasing the dynamic and creative approaches of an emerging and thriving community of biblical scholarship from the African continent and African diaspora, the volume critically examines the interaction of biblical texts with African people and their cultures within a postcolonial framework. While employing feminist/womanist, postcolonial, Afrocentric, social engagement, creative writing, reconstruction, and HIV/AIDS perspectives, the authors all engage with empire in their own ways: in specific times, forms, and geography. This volume is an important addition to postcolonial and empires studies in biblical scholarship. Book jacket.

A Postcolonial Reading of the Acts of the Apostles explores Acts, with its twofold motif of self-exaltation and self-attribution of divine prerogatives, from the viewpoint of postcolonial criticism. The Lukan community struggles to legitimize itself, in hybrid fashion, before two structures of powers or hegemonies: the Roman Empire and its system of imperial worship and the defining institutions of Judaism. Acts emerges as a hidden transcript within the system of imperial worship in Rome - pointing to the fate of any power that would usurp divine prerogatives and claim allegiance to any Lord other than God. The representation by mimicry of Roman worship in Acts, based on supremacy and hegemony and exercised by way of imperial decrees, the erection of temples, neokoroi, religious customs, and so forth, is analyzed. Moreover, the representation of Roman officers is examined observing that Luke portrays them as full of fear but also as liars, seekers of bribes, and, more importantly, in need of salvation and peace. Furthermore, the Lukan community in Acts appears as a Jewish Christian group within the development of a plurality of various forms of Judaism and within the Jesus movement. They see themselves as the legitimate heirs of the correct interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures. They do not deny their ethnicity, but they do proclaim the eschatological/apocalyptic end of the institutions that define Judaism (the kingship and the Sanhedrin as a temple establishment) as well as the restoration of the Kingdom of God, rather than of Israel, with a full acceptance and inclusion of the Gentiles.

Darden's reading of Revelation examines John the Seer's rhetorical strategy, in general, and imperial cult imagery in chapters 4 and 5, in particular, through the lens of an African American scripturalization supplemented by postcolonial theory. The scripturalization proposes that John the Seer's signifyin(g) on empire demonstrated that he was well aware of the oppressive nature of Roman imperialism on the lives of provincial Asian Christians. This is made evident by his fierce, non-accommodating stance towards participation in the imperial cult. Yet, ironically, John reinscribed imperial processes and practices. John's colonized construction as "almost the same but not quite like" has resulted in the production of a resistance strategy that is a "blurred copy" of the hegemonic tactics of the Roman Empire. Relating the potential for African American cooption by the U.S. Empire to the cooption by the Roman Empire both thematized and performed in Revelation, the book argues that African American biblical scholarship must now attend adequately to these complex cultural negotiations lest it find itself inadvertently feeding the imperial beast.

Examining the legacies of European imperialism, Steed Vernyl Davidson traces how the Bible reflects strong affinities with empire and provides on-going justifications for empire and concentrations of power. Writing/Reading the Bible in Postcolonial Perspective traces the evolution of the Bible from its production in empires of antiquity to its supportive role in the development of modern imperialism. The work also engages the ambiguities of the Bible as anti-imperial tool. Set within an examination of postcolonial studies as a revolutionary and revisionary discourse, this work presses for a more vigorous postcolonializing of the Bible in Biblical Studies. A description of the contemporary features and manifestation of empire forms the context within which further exploration of postcolonial biblical critical work can take place. Following an assessment of previous work in the field, the challenges of intersectional work with queer studies, terrorism studies, technology, and ecological studies are laid out as future tasks