African American Interpretation

African American Interpretation
A AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION Historical criticism attempts to read texts in their original situations, informed by literary and cultural conventions reconstructed from compara- ble texts and artifacts. African American interpretation extends this approach to questions about race and social location for the ancient text, its reception history, and its modern readers. It arose as a correc- tive and alternative to white supremacist use of the Bible in moral and political arguments regarding race, civil rights, and social justice. Accordingly, African American interpretation has combined the insights of abolitionists and activists with academic tools to demonstrate how biblical interpretation can function as an instrument of oppression, obfusca- tion, or opportunity. Of course, most of these developments have occurred in the larger framework of American Christianity. Yet, its analyses reach beyond that specific setting, touching on the con- nections between the Bible and race in public dis- course generally, whether in government, academia, or popular culture. White Supremacy, Slavery, and the Bible. The importance of African American interpretation is evident when viewed in light of white supremacy’s development in the United States. When propertied white men during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were deliberating about their freedoms, they were also creating rationales for not extending those liberties to others—poorer white men, white women, indigenous people, and enslaved blacks from Africa. There were some who saw the hypoc- risy of such thinking; some even articulated aspira- tions for a better day, but such hopes for others were left to the invisible hand of Providence. Mean- while, their own freedom required immediate pro- test, collective action, and even war (Fredrickson 2002, pp. 1–47). Nevertheless, white supremacy did not reach its zenith in the United States until the period stretch- ing from the middle of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century. This era included a series of episodes centered on the control of Afri- can Americans: (a) the debates about slavery before the Civil War, accompanied by a variety of violent incidents; (b) the unconscionable carnage of the Civil War; (c) a hopeful yet eventually ruined Recon- struction; and (d) a time of unchecked terrorist violence to enforce de jure and de facto segregation (Fredrickson 2002, pp. 49–138). In each episode, the Bible’s interpretation played a central role in arguments for and protests against white supremacy. In arguments over slavery, for instance, defenders and opponents alike confidently cited the Bible (Noll 2006, pp. 31–50). Slavery’s 1
supporters could easily point to multiple passages where slavery is regulated and slaves are commanded to submit to their masters (e.g., Exod 21:1–11; Deut 20:10–18; 1 Cor 7:21; Col 3:22; 4:1; 1 Tim 6:1–2; 1 Pet 2:18–25). Thus, for those who considered the Bible a divinely inspired rule book, slavery was obviously morally permissible and its opponents possessed by impiety. Moreover, the belief in black inferiority blinded many to the immorality of this race-based system, not to mention its innumerable abuses such as family breakup and rape. Conversely, slavery’s opponents contended that larger biblical principles should guide the reading of particular passages. These included creation in God’s image (Gen 1:26), Jesus’s admonitions on mutuality, love, and care for the vulnerable (Matt 7:12; 22:34–40; 25:31–46), human unity before God (Acts 17:26), and the absolution of social barriers for fellow believers in Christ (Gal 3:28). Because of the self-interests of some, the simple view of the Bible for many, and the white supremacy of most, these latter arguments proved unpersuasive. Instead, the resolution “was left to those consummate theo- logians, the Reverend Doctors Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, to decide what in fact the Bible actually means” (Noll 2006, p. 50). Antebellum Ancestors. One development, however, would have lasting, constructive conse- quences: the emergence of African American interpretation of the Bible in disputes about their humanity and societal standing (Noll 2006, pp. 64–72). In 1810 Daniel Coker, a founding minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, published A Dialogue between a Virginian and an African Minister, where he set forth seven arguments from the Bible against slavery. In 1813 Lemuel Haynes, a Congregationalist minister in Vermont, pointed out the contradictions between the outrage over the forced service of American sailors in the War of 1812 and the quiet acceptance of slavery’s injustices. David Walker published his famous Appeal in 1829, where he argued passionately against slavery on biblical, moral, and historical grounds. Preferring their exegetical arguments, Mark Noll, a historian and an evangelical, concludes that Coker and Haynes “demonstrated that African American biblical reasoning could match in theological acumen the most profound arguments that any white put forward in that period” (p. 73). Frederick Douglass, marching to the beat of a different drum, mustered unequalled eloquence against biblical and theological defenses of slavery. Although he taught himself and others literacy with the Bible, Douglass understood that it was a treach- erous tool of oppression in the hands of racist, pro-slavery whites. So much so that Douglass once publicly argued against raising money for smuggling Bibles to Southern slaves (Callahan 2006, pp. 21–26). “He knew that some people reading the Bible under the slave regime remained tone-deaf to its message of justice” (p. 24). Thus, he found pro-slavery use of the Bible simply loathsome. Indeed, he refused to “play the game” of so-called civil debate. Douglass concluded that the obvious duplicity of slavery’s defenders must only be met with derision. It would be insulting to Common Sense, an outrage upon all right feeling, for us, who have worn the heavy chain and felt the biting lash to consent to argue with Ecclesiastical Sneaks who are thus prostituting their Religion and Bible to the base uses of popular and profitable iniquity. They don’t need light, but the sting of honest rebuke. They are of their father the Devil, and his works they do, not because they are ignorant, but because they are base. (Noll 2006, p. 66) Still, Douglass did not advocate slave revolt. Other African Americans, however, were unwilling to limit their protests to advocacy in activism, oratory, and print. In 1810, slave brothers in Virginia, Gabriel and Martin, orchestrated a revolt before it was discov- ered and stopped. Trial testimony indicates that the Bible was a fundamental inspiration for them. In the neighboring state of South Carolina, moved by Bible reading among black Methodists, Denmark Vesey planned a slave revolt on Bastille Day, 14 July 1822. His plot was foiled, and he and thirty-six others were executed. Nine years later in August 1831, back in Virginia, Nat Turner’s revolt killed sixty whites, and nearly as many blacks were executed for that upris- ing. In the aftermath, several states passed laws 2 AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION
not only prohibiting African American education but severely restricting unsupervised gatherings. Obviously, when these African Americans considered their circumstances, they did not perceive the Bible as pointing to their perpetual compliance. Instead, they saw themselves as similar to the Isra- elites in Egypt, awaiting emancipation, and like the Maccabees under Seleucid rule, they considered human agency a legitimate means of freedom (Call- ahan 2006, pp. 6–10). Of course, these men were not alone in their protests and revolts against slavery. African American women also resisted the repeated denial of their humanity. Instead of viewing the Bible as a hand- book for hierarchy, many of these women saw lib- erty in its pages. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, Phillis Wheatley, the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry, foresaw redemption in biblical references to salvation for Ethiopia (e.g., Ps 68:31; Callahan 2006, p. 141). Harriet Tubman, who escaped from slavery, was inspired by the account of Israel’s exodus from Egypt and was called “Moses” for her work in the Underground Railroad (Callahan pp. 94, 121, 189). Sojourner Truth, a former slave and, later, an abolitionist and advocate for women’s rights, contended for the simple truth that she, too, was a woman, worthy of the same recognition given to others. Thus, like Tubman, she anticipated God saving American slaves similar to the stories of deliverances in the Bible (p. 122). These women and men saw through the preva- lent self-serving use of the Bible by the privileged whites of their day. Life experience and keen obser- vation apparently taught them the importance of social location for how one interpreted the Bible. They discerned the interpretive double standard: one approach applied to one set of human beings for the sake of “inalienable rights” and state sover- eignty. Yet, a different approach applied to this other set, those deemed subhuman due to skin pigmentation, and whose labor had become essen- tial for the others’ economic gain. Despite learned sophistry to the contrary, these antebellum African Americans knew they were deserving of the same respect as any other human being. For a minister like Coker, a doctorate was not required to understand that more learned theolo- gians like Moses Stuart and James Henley Thornwell were obfuscating the clear meaning of Matt 7:12 in the King James Version: “Therefore all things what- soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Noll 2006, pp. 56–64, 66). Indeed, three decades before the Civil War, David Walker asked a pointed rhetorical question: “Now, Americans! I ask you candidly, was your sufferings [sic] under Great Britain, one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have rendered ours under you?” (p. 68). Yet, the resistance of these men and women is only part of the larger picture. The Bible was more than a site of contest in arguments about slavery. African Americans in this era also employed the Bible in creative ways for religious encouragement in song and sermon (Callahan 2006, pp. 10–20). Its language and symbolism were pervasive, providing the threads with which various tapestries were woven as expressions of weal and woe: African Americans found the Bible to be both healing balm and poison book. They could not lay claim to the balm without braving the poison. The same book was both medicine and malediction. To afford themselves its healing properties, African Americans resolved to treat scripture with scripture, much like a homeopathic remedy. . . . Their cure for the toxicity of pernicious scripture was more scripture. The anti- dote to hostile texts of the Bible was more Bible, homeopathically administered to counteract toxins of the text. (p. 40) There were also African Americans in this period who did not subscribe to the sentiments of David Walker, Frederick Douglass, or Harriet Tubman. Some heard and understood the Bible in the terms provided by their masters. They were willing to consider that it was indeed their lot to be slaves in submission to a divinely sanctioned system. Perhaps some who took this position were simply looking out for their self-interests, knowing that rebellion was risky, preferring the known over the unknown. Still, whatever their motivations, whether sincere or AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION 3
cynical, some conducted themselves as if they did indeed believe that the Pauline commands of obe- dience applied directly to them. In fact, some slaves were so committed to the status quo that they were informants on others plotting insurgence. In one infamous example, several slaves subverted the Stono Rebellion of South Carolina in 1739. One slave named July was so important in stopping that rebellion that he was commended by the state legislature and emanci- pated with clothes and shoes. Likewise, a house slave named Peter Prioleau helped squelch Den- mark Vesey’s revolt in 1822. Prioleau was emanci- pated on Christmas and given an annual pension, which he used for slave purchase (Kennedy 2008, pp. 32–37). These examples illustrate why someone like Douglass was unwilling to raise funds for con- traband Bibles sent to Southern slaves. He lamented, “I have met many religious colored people, at the South, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery and to wear chains with meekness and humility” (Callahan, p. 23). The Bible’s interpretation among African Ameri- cans before the Civil War demonstrates how thor- oughly so many of them understood the importance of social location. Many of the best black thinkers in this period were creative and critical “masters of suspicion” in their scrutiny of the complex relation- ship between text, reader, and community. They modeled what would become the subject of academic debate decades later: the Bible (like any text) does not necessarily have a definitive, discern- able meaning, which is universally accessible and applicable. Rather, its meaning is largely determined by a community of interpreters who are morally accountable for how they arrange and apply that interpretation. This is particularly the case with an anthology of discrete books like the Bible, whose texts do not literally speak without the agency of human interpreters. Thus, appeal to the text as an independent authority is simply a way of obscuring, intentionally or unintentionally, the decisive role of interpreters. Long before literary theorists like Stan- ley Fish were raising critical questions about the role of interpretive communities in determining textual meaning (Fish 1982), African Americans were asking, “Is there a text on this plantation?” Social Location after Slavery. This stance of suspicion toward the predominate interpretation of the Bible continued as racism became worse and more violent in the first half of the twentieth century. After the Civil War, white terrorism included the lynching of more than 3,400 African Americans from 1882 to 1944 (Dray 2002). In addition, as Douglas Blackmon argued in his Pulitzer Prize– winning book Slavery by Another Name (2008), in many respects slavery did not cease with the war in 1865. Instead, a vast public/private system was orchestrated to virtually re-enslave a significant seg- ment of African American men. Blackmon concludes that slavery was not effectively over until the 1940s. In fact, after the celebrated struggles and suc- cesses of the civil rights movement, culminating with landmark legislation in 1964–1965, the power of racism over the lives of African Americans still did not come to an end. It did become more oblique, however. This shows up in paradoxical developments after that pivotal period. On the one hand, American society has made tremendous progress in reducing societal impediments based on race. The opportunities that became available for African Americans have been significant and should not be minimized. This progress recently reached a sym- bolic plateau unforeseen by many with the election in 2008 and re-election in 2012 of Barack Obama, the first African American president. On the other hand, these strides were often marked by setbacks. The setbacks were, in fact, reactions to the progress. In response to employ- ment gains for African Americans in government, educational, and privates sectors, for instance, there was a significant controversy around affirmative- action policies, a related rise in resentments by whites, and concomitant complaints by African Americans about subtle racial bias among profes- sionals and police. These tensions set the stage for momentous turmoil in the 1990s, as seen in the riots that occurred in Los Angeles in 1992 after police were acquitted of criminal charges despite video recording of their beating of Rodney King. Likewise, 4 AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION
substantial racial strife arose after O.J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995, also in Los Angeles. These racially tinged events in the American West some three decades after the civil rights movement led one white biblical scholar to write a brief critique of racism. In his judgment, “The O.J. trial . . . exploded the myth that racism in America is confined to the South. And the truth is that his trial is only the most public example of the racism and racial division that exist nationwide” (McKenzie 1997, p. vii). The conflicting perceptions around the presidential election in 2008 also illustrate the dilemma of racial progress. Many political observers contend that reactions to that presidential campaign were clearly imbued with overt racism and indirect racial bias. Further, some argue that President Obama’s racial identity has actually made it more difficult for him to address race-related issues. Thus, even an event of this magnitude becomes a two-edged sword, revealing stirring progress and persistent prejudice, simultaneously (Kennedy 2011). This dynamic is not limited to political elections, either. In other areas, it is actually more troubling and consequential but admittedly more difficult to discern. For one willing to look closely, though, one can observe how social policies significantly affecting urban areas after the late 1960s were reactions to the gains of the civil rights movement. These urban centers, such as Detroit, Cleveland, and, again, parts of Los Angeles, have become more dilapidated and dysfunctional, with the influx of illegal drugs, a corresponding increase in prison sentencing for drug-related crimes, and an extensive exodus in jobs and taxes by middle-class whites and blacks. These debilitating aspects have had a dispropor- tionate impact on poorer African Americans who inhabit these spaces. Several social scientists, in fact, contend that these dysfunctional sites are the outgrowth of a segregationist past coupled with the evolution of a nuanced racial stigma, now aug- mented and diffused by socioeconomic class. Incomparable incarceration rates for African Amer- ican men demonstrate the depth of these deleterious factors. The numbers have skyrocketed since the civil rights movement, the Black Power movement, and the race riots in the late 1960s. “The US prison population is larger than at any time in the history of the penitentiary anywhere in the world. Nearly half of the more than two million Americans behind bars are African Americans, and an unprecedented number of black men will likely go to prison during the course of their lives” (Muhammad 2010, p. 1). Inheritance in the Academy. These larger socio- historical developments provide the setting for academic interpretation of the Bible among African Americans. Yet, no African American held a doctorate in biblical studies before World War II. In 1945, though, Leon Edward Wright became the first Afri- can American to earn a PhD in New Testament from Harvard. He went on to serve as a professor for more than thirty years at Howard University in Washing- ton, D.C. Two years later, Charles B. Copher earned a PhD in Hebrew Bible from Boston University. He joined the faculty at the Interdenominational Theo- logical Center (ITC) in Atlanta, teaching there for more than five decades. In 1953 Joseph A. Johnson was the first African American student in the Van- derbilt Divinity School in Nashville and received his PhD in NT five years later, the third African Amer- ican to earn a doctorate in biblical studies. Johnson also taught at ITC, later becoming president of its Christian Methodist institution, Phillips School of Theology (Wimbush 2010, p. 8, n. 4). As these pioneers instructed seminarians at his- torically black institutions in the 1960s, they wit- nessed young African Americans moving away from the integrationist emphasis of the civil rights movement. Instead, there was a turn to Black Nationalism, which included a focus on the contributions of African Americans, an affirmation of physical blackness, and a celebration of origins in Africa. During this time, many African American Christians were criticized heavily by other African Americans and often told that their religion was “the white man’s religion.” This accusation came from Black Nationalists generally and from the Nation of Islam in particular, perhaps most power- fully expressed by Malcolm X before his split with Elijah Muhammad. AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION 5
James Cone articulated a response with the pub- lication of Black Theology and Black Power in 1969 and A Black Theology of Liberation in 1970. Cone created a theological approach that addressed African Americans and their societal concerns. He emphasized “black theology” as an affirmation of black suffering and in opposition to white oppression. This blackness was not just about skin color; it was about a condition in a society still characterized by white supremacy despite premature self-congra- tulations after the civil rights movement. This was a theology of “blackness” in terms of the downtrod- den, those left to languish in cities wrecked by riots just a few years earlier. Accordingly, there would be no salvation for white American Christians until they rejected the privilege of whiteness and identified with blackness instead. For Cone, that is the meaning of the Christian cross at that particular moment in American history. Black biblical scholars began to argue for a “black presence” in the Bible as a complement to and support for the aims of black theology. Moreover, in the larger setting of Black Nationalism, African Americans sought to identify black heroes as a source of pride as well as a counter to claims of inferiority. In this logic, if black people are equal, then history should be replete with examples of black greatness, examples that have been denied, suppressed, or stolen by a distorted history. Given the place of the Bible in American religion and culture, it became an important site of contest about race and misrepresentations. To a certain degree, this was entirely appropriate given the per- vasiveness of white images in biblically focused movies, books, and art. Too often, Jesus looked like a man from Norway rather than from Nazareth (Blum and Harvey 2012). Charles Copher can be identified as “the parent of modern day scholarly study of ‘Blacks in the Bible’” (Bailey 2000, p. 697). Writing in the 1970s and under the influence of John Bright’s historiography, Copher assumed a general reliability for the biblical accounts, beginning with the list of nations in Gen- esis 10. He endeavored to show that several of the places mentioned there and in the rest of the Bible could be identified as locations in Africa and thus the inhabitants should be considered black. In ironic contrast to the disparaging deployment of Ham by white supremacists, Copher identified Ham in Genesis 10:6–14 as a black African, and the sons of Ham delineated there—Egypt, Cush, Put, and Canaan—were also black. Thus, blacks were not cursed for slavery but were important, respected, and valued (Bailey 2000, pp. 697–698; Brown 2004, pp. 24–34). Cain Hope Felder employed a similar approach in the 1980s and 1990s, noting that Southwest Asia and North Africa are generally populated by people of color, however dark or light in complexion. The people who lived in those areas were not white Europeans. Thus, the Egyptians with their great accomplishments should be understood as people of color (Felder 1989). Similarly, the Ethiopian queen and her official mentioned in Acts 8:26, for instance, were people of color. When Joseph, Mary, and Jesus had to flee for safety, they fled to Egypt in North Africa (pp. 12–14). Again and again, one can see the presence and importance of people of color in the Bible. Felder’s approach dovetailed nicely with an emphasis on multiculturalism in education during the 1990s. As he traveled and explained these issues, he often found receptive audiences; his success was complemented by editing an important collection of essays by African American scholars (Felder, 1991). In addition, Felder published The Original African Heritage Study Bible (KJV) in 1993, with annotations addressing the black presence in the Bible. The impact of this study Bible was as much about psychological uplift as it was about scholarly spe- cifics. To be sure, Felder could argue his point. Yet, in some respects, that was not the most important effect, at least not on a sociocultural level. African Americans had seen nothing but images of whites in biblical depictions for centuries. Now, finally, cre- dentialed scholars were saying that such a picture was incomplete at best, and racist at worse. Felder’s Afrocentric approach resonated and provided a helpful psychosocial defense against persistently negative images of African Americans. Understood 6 AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION
in these terms, one can appreciate the efforts of Felder, and of Copher before him. In retrospect, one can also recognize legitimate criticisms and preferable alternatives (Bailey 2000, pp. 698; Brown 2004, pp. 35–53). For African American scholars entering biblical studies in the 1990s and since, the conversation has changed significantly. For one, it was important to extend the conversation beyond a male-centered one on race and identity. A full picture of how the biblical text has been and can be employed must address gender as well as race and interrogate how gender and race may be intertwined or separated to different effects. This applies to the ancient biblical text as well as its interpretation by modern men and women. Attempting to take account of these com- plexities is one distinctive aspect of womanist interpretation compared to feminist criticism (Martin, 1991; Weems, 1991). African American biblical scholars are also asking larger historical and cultural questions about the function of the Bible in diverse black communities, past and present. How has the Bible functioned? To what effect? To whose benefit? Moreover, does the Bible even deserve its sacred standing? Randall Bai- ley, Hugh Page, Brian Blount, and Vincent Wimbush have consistently pressed these and other questions. Besides their individual publications, each of these scholars has edited an impressive collection of essays on African American biblical interpretation. Each collection pushes past traditional conceptions of what constitutes biblical scholarship. In chapter after chapter in these edited volumes, biblical interpretation is engaged alongside literature, art, politics, music, and larger sociopolitical issues. Brian Blount has also published several books on biblical interpretation and the African American church (1998; 2001; 2005). In addition, he is now the first African American president of Union Theo- logical Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. In 2010 Vincent Wimbush became the first African Ameri- can to serve as president of the Society of Biblical Literature. Characteristically, he pressed the guild “to start and to sustain ‘talkin’ ‘bout somethin’” (2010, p. 9). The Contribution of African American Interpre- tation. In sum, contemporary African American scholars of the Bible have adapted their antebellum inheritance in diverse ways, while remaining faithful to key aspects of it. They continue to employ biblical interpretation as a community-centered counter to various forms of bias and marginalization. Accordingly, they have resisted the strictures of so-called mainstream scholarship and its definition of what constitutes valuable contributions. They have repeatedly demonstrated an awareness of and some allegiance to the pressing needs and concerns of the African American communities that pro- duced them. They have understood that calls from the guild to do “typical” scholarship certainly have their place, especially for professional advancement and security. Yet, such calls can also come from privilege and detachment, luxuries that many Afri- can American scholars feel they cannot afford. [See also African Biblical Interpretation; Asian American Biblical Interpretation; Class Criticism; Cross-Cultural Exegesis; Cultural Studies; Race, Ethnicity, and Biblical Criticism; and Womanist Interpretation] B I B L I O G R A P H Y Bailey, Randall C. “Academic Biblical Interpretation among African Americans in the United States.” In African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures, edited by Vincent Wimbush, 696–711. New York: Continuum, 2000. Bailey, Randall C. “Beyond Identification: The Use of Africans in Old Testament Poetry and Narratives.” In Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation, edited by Cain Hope Felder, 165–184. Minneapolis, D.C.: Fortress, 1991. Bailey, Randall C., Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Fernando F. Segovia, eds. They Were All Together in One Place? Toward Minority Biblical Criticism. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009. Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black America from the Civil War to World War II. New York: Doubleday, 2008. Blount, Brian K. Can I Get a Witness?: Reading Revelation through African American Culture. Louisville, KY.: Westminster/John Knox, 2005. Blount, Brian K. Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION 7
Blount, Brian K. Go Preach!: Mark’s Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1998. Blount, Brian K. Revelation: A Commentary. The New Testament Library. Louisville, KY.: Westminster/ John Knox, 2009. Blount, Brian K. Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context. Nashville: Abingdon, 2001. Blount, Brian K., ed. True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Blum, Edward J., and Paul Harvey. The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Brown, Michael Joseph. Blackening of the Bible: The Aims of African American Biblical Scholarship. New York: Trinity Press International, 2004. Callahan, Allen Dwight. The Talking Book: African Amer- icans and the Bible. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2006. Dray, Philip. At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America. New York: Random House, 2002. Felder, Cain Hope, ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Felder, Cain Hope. Troubling Biblical Waters: Race, Class, and Family. Maryknoll N.Y.: Orbis, 1989. Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A Short History. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002. Kennedy, Randall. The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency. New York: Vintage, 2011. Kennedy, Randall. Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal. New York: Vintage, 2008. Martin, Clarice. “The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation: ‘Free Slaves’ and ‘Subordinate Women.’” In Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation, edited by Cain Hope Felder, 206–231. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. McKenzie, Steven L. All God’s Children: A Biblical Critique of Racism. Louisville, KY.: Westminster/John Knox, 1997. Muhammad, Khalil Gibran. The Condemnation of Black- ness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010. Noll, Mark A. The Civil War as a Theological Crisis. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Page, Hugh R., ed. The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010. Weems, Renita J. “Reading Her Way Through the Strug- gle: African American Women and the Bible.” In Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpre- tation, edited by Cain Hope Felder, 57–77. Minneap- olis: Fortress, 1991. Wimbush, Vincent, ed. African Americans and the Bible: Sacred Texts and Social Textures. New York: Contin- uum, 2000. Wimbush, Vincent. “Interpreters—Enslaving/Enslaved/ Runagate.” Journal of Biblical Literature 130 (2010): 5–24. Wimbush, Vincent. “We Will Make Our Own Future Text: An Alternate Orientation to Interpretation.” In True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary. edited by Brian Blount, 63–72. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Joseph Scrivner AFRICAN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION African biblical interpretation is a thriving enter- prise in and out of the academy, from the ancient past to contemporary times and is best articulated in the volumes edited by West and Dube (2000), Dube (2001), and Dube, Mbuvi, and Mbuwayesango (2012) that largely inform all the sections of this article. From the earliest Bible translations, such as the Septuagint/LXX of Alexandria (ca. third century B.C.E.) and the Ethiopian Ge0 ez Bible of the fourth century C.E., to multiple biblical translations of modern times attest that the Bible has been read and interpreted in the African continent in various frameworks as Christianity continues to grow. While we are yet to fully capture all the frameworks of African biblical interpretations, some of its char- acteristics include: (1) reading the Bible with and through African cultural perspectives; (2) reading the Bible for liberation; (3) reading the Bible within the African context and addressing the communal issues of well-being; (4) studying various Bible readers for possible frameworks of interpretation; 8 AFRICAN AMERICAN INTERPRETATION

African American Interpretation

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African American Interpretation