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    Bible and African Americans: A Brief History
    Bible and African Americans: A Brief History
    Bible and African Americans: A Brief History
    Ebook72 pages54 minutes

    Bible and African Americans: A Brief History

    By Vincent L. Wimbush

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    The unique encounter of African Americans with th
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherFortress Press
    Release dateJan 2, 2003
    ISBN9781451419443
    Bible and African Americans: A Brief History

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      Book preview

      Bible and African Americans - Vincent L. Wimbush

      The Bible and African Americans

      The Measure of a Man,

      Martin Luther King Jr.

      Visionary Women: Three Medieval

      Mystics, Rosemary Radford Ruether

      The Sayings of Jesus: The Sayings Gospel Q in

      English, James M. Robinson

      Spirituality of the Psalms,

      Walter Brueggemann

      Biblical Theology: A Proposal,

      Brevard S. Childs

      The Contemporary Quest for Jesus,

      N. T. Wright

      Christian Faith and Religious Diversity,

      Mobilization for the Human Family,

      John B. Cobb Jr., editor

      Who Is Christ for Us? Dietrich Bonhoeffer

      The Bible and African Americans:

      A Brief History, Vincent L. Wimbush

      Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives,

      Cain Hope Felder

      Ancient Palestine:

      A Historical Introduction, Gösta Ahlström

      Traffic in Truth: Exchanges between Science

      and Theology, John R. Polkinghorne

      The Bible and African Americans

      A Brief History

      Vincent L. Wimbush

      Fortress Press

      Minneapolis

      THE BIBLE AND AFRICAN AMERICANS

      A Brief History

      Copyright © 2003 Augsburg Fortress. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

      Scripture is from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.

      Cover image: Chain. Steve Cole/Getty Images. Used by permission.

      Cover and book design: Joseph P. Bonyata

      Author photo by Michael Grimaldi.

      ISBN: 0-8006-3574-4

      eISBN: 9781451419443

      For Mom in love and gratitude

      Contents

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction: The Bible as Language-World

      Reading 1

      African Sensibilities as the Center of the Circle: First Contact

      Reading 2

      Creating the New World Circle: Folk Culture

      Reading 3

      Establishing the Circle: National(ist) Identities and Formations

      Reading 4

      Reshaping the Circle: Re-mixes and Re-formations

      Reading 5

      Stepping Outside the Circle: Fundamentalism

      Reading 6

      Making the Circle True: Women’s Experiences

      Ongoing Engagement

      Notes

      Acknowledgments

      In this small volume, I have returned to the question of how African American engagement with the Bible can best be understood over its many centuries and radically diverse circumstances. I do so by revising and updating my earlier work in Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Fortress Press, 1991). I want first to express my thanks to the Fund for Theological Education, Inc., for permission to publish the work that follows as a revised standalone volume.

      Thanks are also due to the honest and constructive critics of the recent lectures I delivered that were the basis of my revisions: Professor Dieter Georgi and the scholars, clergy, and students who participated in the colloquium on the future of biblical studies, near Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, in October 2001; Professor Dennis Smith and the faculty, students, alumni/ae, and clergy who attended the Ministers’ Week Conference sponsored by Phillips Theological Seminary, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in January 2001; Ms. Gertrude Albert and the members of the Ridgewood Presbyterian Church, Ridgewood, New Jersey, and their guests who attended the Lenten Lectures, March 2002; Professor Frank Kirkland, Hunter College, New York and the members of the Society for the Study of African Philosophy who attended the session held on March 17, 2002; and the Reverend Dr. Jay Rock of the National Council of Churches and the participants in the colloquium on Jewish and Christian Dialogue who met in Stony Point New York, April 15, 2002.

      I owe a great deal to students in the various degree programs and fields at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University and my New Testament/Early Christianity colleagues for the inspiration and challenge they have provided me during the last several years. And I deeply appreciate the generous financial support of the Ford Foundation. For the last several years, it has made possible the research project (African Americans and the Bible) and research resources that have helped me fine-tune and reframe the arguments that follow. Ford Foundation officer Constance H. Buchanan, in particular, has been an inspiration and a most valued conversation partner and critic, especially about what could be the broader social and cultural ramifications and political-educational implications of my scholarly work. I hope her challenge to me to put my arguments in popular form and Fortress Press’s invitation to make this work a part of the Facets series, as they have come together in the work that follows, will prove to have been worth their efforts.

      We Read in the Bible and We Understan’

      We read in the Bible and we understan’

      That Samson was the strongest man

      Samson went out at one time

      And killed about a thousand Philistines.

      Delilah fooled Samson, this we know

      Because the Holy Bible tells us so.

      She shaved off his head just as

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