SciELO - Scientific Electronic Library Online

 
vol.22 issue2 author indexsubject indexarticles search
Home Pagealphabetic serial listing  

Services on Demand

Article

Indicators

Related links

  • On index processCited by Google
  • On index processSimilars in Google

Share


Old Testament Essays

On-line version ISSN 2312-3621
Print version ISSN 1010-9919

Old testam. essays vol.22 n.2 Pretoria  2009

 

Beyond the "ordinary reader" and the "invisible intellectual": Shifting contextual bible study from liberation discourse to liberation pedagogy

 

 

Sarojini Nadar

University of KwaZulu-Natal

Correspondence

 

 


ABSTRACT

Drawing on eight years of experience gathered at contextual bible studies facilitated by the author, this article intends to push the boundaries of the understanding of the role of the "ordinary" reader and the intellectual in the process of contextual bible study (a method of bible study that attempts to work at the interface between faith communities and the academy around issues of social transformation). It argues that if transformation is the end-goal of contextual bible studies then the critical resources which the intellectual brings to the process will have to be far more emphasised and nuanced than it has been in the past; that the effects of globalisation, particularly as reflected in the ubiquitous term "biblical values" which comes up often in contextual bible studies will have to be addressed; and the identity and role of the intellectual will have to be more fully interrogated than it has been in the past. The article argues that neither an understanding that promotes "community wisdom" or "hidden transcripts" nor an understanding of the "all-powerful" intellectual is helpful in understanding the dynamics of contextual bible study. This discussion will be facilitated by elucidating some of the characteristic features of CBS, what I have termed the five C's of CBS - Community, Context, Criticality, Concientisation and Change.


 

 

“Full text available only in PDF format”

 

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brettler, M. Z. Biblical Authority: A Jewish Pluralistic View. Pages 1-9, in Engaging Biblical Authority: Perspectives on the Bible as Scripture. Edited by W P Brown. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007.         [ Links ]

Cochrane, J. R. Circles of Dignity - Community Wisdom and Theological Reflection. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999.         [ Links ]

Chung, H.K. Untitled Paper delivered at 3rd World Forum on Theology and Liberation in the Eco-Theological Embodiment Panel, 24 January 2009.         [ Links ]

De Gruchy, S. M. & Ellis, W. "Christian Leadership in 'Another Country': Contributing to an Ethical Development Agenda in South Africa Today." Pages 9-20 in From Our Side - Emerging Perspectives on Development and Ethics. Edited by S. M. De Gruchy, N. Koopman & S. Strijbos. Amsterdam: Rozenburg Publishers, 2008.         [ Links ]

_____. Nd. Unpublished Training Manual - See - Judge - Act: Putting Faith Into Action. A Handbook for Christian groups engaged in social transformation. University of KwaZulu-Natal        [ Links ]

Dube, M. W. "Readings of Semoya - Batswana women's interpretations of Matt. 15:21-28." Semeia 73 (1996): 111-129.         [ Links ]

_____. Postcolonial feminist interpretation of the Bible. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000.         [ Links ]

_____. "Divining Ruth for International Relations." Pages 179-189 In Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible. Edited by M W Dube. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001.         [ Links ]

Exum, C. J. Feminist criticism - whose interests are being served. Pages 65-90 in Judges and method - new approaches in Biblical studies. Edited by G. A. Yee. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995.         [ Links ]

Freire P. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Revised Ed. Translated by M Ramos. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.         [ Links ]

Haddad B. G. "African women's theologies of survival - intersecting faith, feminisms, and development." Ph.D. diss., University of Natal, 2000.         [ Links ]

Hunt, M.E. Bodies Don't Lie: A Feminist Theological Perspective on Embodiment, Paper delivered at 3rd World Forum on Theology and Liberation in the Eco-Theological Embodiment Panel, 24 January 2009.         [ Links ]

Jones Nelson, Alissa. "Job In Conversation With Edward Said," SBL Forum, n.p.         [ Links ] [cited Jan 2009]. Online:http://sbl-site.org/Article.aspx?ArticleID=797

Keegan T. J. "Biblical criticism and the challenge of postmodernism." Biblical Interpretation 3 (1995): 1-14        [ Links ]

Macklin, R. Against Relativism: Cultural Diversity and the Search for Ethical Universals in Medicine. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1999.         [ Links ]

Maluleke T. S. "Theological Interest in AIC's and other Grass-root Communities in South Africa. Part 1 and Part 2." Journal of Black Theology in South Africa 10,1 (1996): 18-29        [ Links ]

_____. "African Ruths in Ruthless Africa: Reflections of an African Mordecai." Pages 237-252 in Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible. Geneva, WCC Publications, 2001.         [ Links ]

Maluleke T. S. & Nadar, S. "Alien Fraudsters in the White Academy: Agency in Gendered Colour." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 120 (2004): 5-17.         [ Links ]

Masenya, M J. "Reading the Bible the Bosadi (Womanhood) way." Bulletin for contextual theology in Southern Africa and Africa 4 (1997): 15-16.         [ Links ]

Nadar S. "Emerging From Muddy Waters." Pages 15-32 in Claiming Our Footprints: South African Women Reflect on Context, Identity and Spirituality. Edited by D. M. Ackermann, E. J. Getman, H. Kotze, and J. Tobler. Stellenbosch: EFSA, 2000.         [ Links ]

_____. "Power, Ideology and Interpretation/s: Womanist and Literary perspectives on the book of Esther as resources for gender-social transformation." Ph.D. diss., University of Natal, 2003.         [ Links ]

_____. '"It's part of my Culture!' (and religion) - Feminist Cultural Hermeneutics in the light of the Jacob Zuma Rape Trial" in Private transgressions, Public Tirades, National Politics: The Jacob Zuma Rape Trial. Edited by C. Potgieter, P. D. Gqola, V. Reddy. Pretoria: HSRC Press, forthcoming.         [ Links ]

_____. "Who's Afraid of the Bible Believing Christian? Reading the Bible in Relation to Neo-Pentecostal Challenges." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 132, forthcoming.         [ Links ]

Osiek, C. "Feminists and the Bible - hermeneutical alternatives." Pages 93-105 in Feminist perspectives on Biblical scholarship. Edited by A. Y. Collins,. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1985.         [ Links ]

Petersen R. "Time, resistance and reconstruction - rethinking Kairos theology". Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1995.         [ Links ]

Philpott G. Jesus is tricky and God is undemocratic - the Kin-Dom of God in Amawoti. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publications, 1993.         [ Links ] Powers, R. S. Vogele, W. B., Kruegler, C. & McCarthy, R. M. (eds.), Protest, Power and Change: An Encyclopaedia of Nonviolent Action from ACT-Up to Women's Suffrage, New York, Garland, 1997.         [ Links ]

Said, E. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. London: Vintage, 1994.         [ Links ]

Shaull, R. Foreword to Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by P. Freire. Revised Ed. Translated by M Ramos. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996.         [ Links ]

Ukpong J. S. "The parable of the shrewd manager (Lk. 16:1-13) - an essay in the inculturation Biblical hermeneutic." Semeia 73(1996): 189-212.         [ Links ]

West G. O. Contextual Bible Study. Pietermaritzburg: Cluster Publication, 1995.         [ Links ]

_____. "Reading the Bible Differently: Giving Shape to the Discourse of the Dominated." Semeia 73 (1996): 21-42.         [ Links ]

_____. "Being Partially Constituted by Work with Others." Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 104 (1999a):44-54.         [ Links ]

_____. "Contextual Bible Study: Creating Sacred and Safe Place for social Transformation." Grace and Truth 2 (1999b): 51-63.         [ Links ]

_____. The Academy of the Poor: Towards a Dialogical Reading of the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999c.         [ Links ]

_____. "Disguising defiance in rituals of subordination - literary and community-based resources for recovering resistance discourse within the dominant discourses of the Bible." Pages 194-217 in Reading communities, reading Scripture - essays in honor of Daniel Patte, edited by G. A. Phillips and N.W. Duran. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 2002.         [ Links ]

_____. "Contextual Bible Study in South Africa: A Resource for Reclaiming and Regaining Land, Dignity and Identity." Pages 595-610 in The Bible in Africa: Transactions, Trajectories and Trends. Edited by G. O. West and M. W. Dube. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2000.         [ Links ]

_____. "The Vocation of an African biblical scholar on the margins of biblical scholarship." Old Testament Essays 19/1 (2006): 307-336.         [ Links ]

_____. "The Bible and the female body in Ibandla lamaNazaretha: Isaiah Shembe and Jephtah's daughter." Old Testament Essays 20/2 (2007): 489-509.         [ Links ]

Williams, J. "Towards a womanist theology of liberation in South Africa: black domestic workers as a case study." Journal of Black Theology of South Africa 6 (1990): 46-52.         [ Links ]

 

 

Correspondence:
Sarojini Nadar
Senior Lecturer & Programme Director: Gender and Religion
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209
E-mail: nadars@ukzn.ac.za

Creative Commons License All the contents of this journal, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License