AbstractThis thesis analyses and expounds upon the writings and methodology of Musa W. Dube, offering in effect a hermeneutics of Dube’s hermeneutics. It argues that Dube has created a unique methodology and style of argumentation: requiring a unique classification, multivalent—encompassing two or more types of criticism along with two or more layers of narrative. Through her use of diverse modes of critique e.g., post/colonial, feminist, and the active hybridity of African Independent Churches, Dube has formulated a dynamic heuristic tool for assessing past and contemporary patterns of colonization, while reading for decolonization and the revitalization of relationships as liberating interdependence. To adequately assess Dube’s work, the argument uses several layers of critical analysis, inclusive of European, British, American political and literary theory, interacting with African political and literary theory and theology. To that end, it uniquely argues (1) for the conceptualization of Dube’s work as multivalent narrativity; (2) a clarified understanding of her methodology for the sake of replicability; (3) for the value of this method in addressing decolonisation in local and international arenas; and (4) an original analysis of how Dube’s multivalent points of narration and argumentation interact at the literary and semiotic levels.

AbstractBiblical texts are assumed by communities that use them to be authoritative texts that should guide human relations positively. The phrase 'liberating the word', originating among biblical feminists, however, suggests two issues: first, it points to inherent limitations of the biblical scriptures; second, it places an ethical call on the reader/interpreter to take responsibility for liberating the word. Drawing from her experience as a Tswana African woman, the author analyses Matthew 23, which she reads as colonizing rhetoric of suppressing the Other. She discusses this text in the context of the colonial missionary approach in Africa, which was characterized by condemnation of all that was unfamiliar and a celebration of European culture. She argues that this approach was also scripturally informed.

AbstractMbuya Nehanda, an African indigenous priestess and freedom fighter, uttered the words “my bones shall rise again” when the British colonialists sentenced her to death in 1862, for leading a resistance movement against the infiltration of colonizers in her motherland, contemporary Zimbabwe. Her story and words articulate resistance against bodily, spiritual, cultural, economic, political, and intellectual annihilation through the forces of colonization. Her story and words provide a decolonizing African feminist framework discourse, which is Earth and spiritually centered. This chapter congregates the narratives of various legendary African women to highlight decolonizing, depatriarchalizing, and anti-anthropocentric feminist knowledge production they model. By reading the narratives of African legendary women, who were spiritual, environmental, political, and freedom icons, this chapter seeks to highlight Africa-informed knowledges about gender construction and liberation from various forms of oppression.

AbstractAs a child of Zimbabwean migrants who relocated to Botswana when black people were dispossessed of their land, my own historical context is postcolonial. Like other Two-Thirds World populations, modern imperialism has remained a narrative woven into our bodies, spirits, minds and lands, ever demanding to be read and interpreted. Postcolonial framework of reading is thus the art of wrestling with the past and the present in the quest to glean our shared futures, changed and healed futures. Postcolonial literary theories describe myriad ways of reading that explore how imperialism was imposed on various nations/populations and times; its impact on the colonized populations and lands, and how the colonized responded/resisted/collaborated/survived. In literary studies, postcolonial theories explore the production and role of literature and cultural texts in the modern imperial–colonial relationships by examining texts that arise from both ends as well as the role of pre-existing literature. The application of postcolonial theories to biblical literature falls to the latter.

AbstractIn response to K. N. Ngwa's study of Exodus 2 (see #1038), D. begins by recounting African regional wars during his high school and university years, then turns to Ngwa's essay as a "multilayered cultivation of a language that enables us to talk and think about the past, the present, and the future not only in the war-torn African state of Cameroon . . . as well as throughout the world," but where, however, there are "no motifs . . . of complete escape from Pharaoh" (p. 899). How might Africa reengage colonialism? D. points to the African traditions of hospitality and tricksterism. The midwives were such tricksters, as were Moses's mother and sister. D. casts Ngwa's reading as an example of the kind of trickstering that needs to take place today in Africa. See also ##1036, 1038, 1039. [Abstracted by: Paul L. Redditt] Abstract Number: OTA39-2016-JUN-1037

AbstractUsing contextual, postcolonial, gender and liberation perspectives, the article seeks to read the Bible in the light of aging processes

AbstractMother Earth is home to an unprecedented number of translations of the Bible, making it the most widely translated book in the world. The pages of this book have traversed a variety of physical and metaphorical borders, navigating diverse geographical, political, economic, cultural, linguistic, and religious intersections. Across space, time, and cultures, millions of readers have found various reasons to read it through diverse lenses. The Bible was frequently translated and brought to the colonized territories with colonial movements. Regrettably, it was often utilized as a tool for subjugation and dominance. However, the colonized people also used this resource for their own goals. Do contemporary biblical studies have the courage to look upon the tomes and tons of translated Bibles lying upon the surface of Mother Earth? What responsibilities and opportunities does the Global Translated Bible(s) lay upon academic biblical studies? What research questions, challenges, and opportunities for collaboration does it open? What are the pedagogical obligations and implications of acknowledging the Global Translated Bible(s)? In other words, what does faithfulness and unfaithfulness to the translated biblical corpus entail, imply, and demand? This lecture proposes and emphasizes the imperative of mainstreaming the Global Translated Bible(s) into academic biblical studies.

AbstractThe relationship between postcolonialism and feminism is often complicated and conflict-laden in its struggles against empire and patriarchy and its related social categories of oppression. The question is, How have African women in former colonies balanced their act ? To address this question, the article focusses on Boleo, A Setswana Novel . Firstly, theories of post-coloniality and feminism are explored. Secondly, four creative African women writers are analysed for their take on the intersection of postcolonialism and feminism prior to reading Boleo, A Setswana Novel. Thirdly, the analysis of Boleo indicates boundary crossing and cross-border oppressions and solidarity in the struggle against apartheid that features a female protagonist and other minor characters. It is proposed that because the novel equates apartheid with sin ( boleo ), it thus constructs salvation as the concerted communal efforts of resistance and suspicion towards the institutions of the oppressor, characterised by baitiredi [independent or self-actualising workers], a political movement founded by Boleo. The analysis of the African novel indicates that the struggle against colonial and patriarchy gave rise to the First Things First; Second Things First and Both Things Simultaneously approaches, which are evident within African women creative writers. Contribution: This article adheres to the journal’s scope and vision by its focus on a systematic, historical, exegetical and practical reflection within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences and humanities generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse.

Abstract[republication] Musa W. Dube As a young girl, one of the derisive comments I frequently heard at our family retail shop was: “Dilo ke lona le tsile le tlola melolwane le melolwane; dinoka le dinokana, le tsile go bapala kwano. ” That is, “you came crossing one boundary after another, one river after another to trade in our country. ” The subtext in the statement was that we were foreigners who did not deserve, or had merely been favored to access economic resources in Botswana. My parents and five of my eldest siblings were born in Zimbabwe, and the last five of us were born in Botswana. Before we migrated to Botswana, it had happened that the village where my parents lived was declared a white man’s ranch. Indigenous people in the area were given two choices: to remain in their homes and assume the status of servants to the owner...

AbstractChristianity and translation in the colonial context - 1

Abstract[republication] This paper investigates how native languages were used by colonizers to subordi nate the colonized. The paper uses an example from the Setswana language of Botswana to investigate the colonial translations of the Bible and compilation of the first dictionaries and to show how they were informed by their time. It focuses on the translation of Badimo (Ancestral Spirits) and other related words to show how the Setswana language was employed for imperial ends in colonial times. The paper also examines how the subsequent versions of the Setswana Bible and dictionaries reflect the growing spirit of decolonization as colonized subjects became involved in writing their own languages. Given that colonial translations remained in circulation beyond the period of colonization, this paper also documents how native readers developed strategies of resistance by reading the Bible as a divining text to get in touch with Badimo, thereby subverting the colonial translations that equated the latter with evil powers.

Abstract[Republication of a journal article of the same name] This paper investigates how native languages were used by colonizers to subordinate the colonized. The paper uses an example from the Setswana language of Botswana to investigate the colonial translations of the Bible and compilation of the first dictionaries and to show how they were informed by their time.1 It focuses on the translation of Badimo [Ancestral Spirits] and other related words to show how the Setswana language was employed for imperial ends in colonial times. The paper also examines how the subsequent versions of the Setswana Bible and dictionaries reflect the growing spirit of decolonization as colonized subjects became involved in writing their own languages. Given that colonial translations remained in circulation beyond the period of colonization, this paper also documents how native readers developed strategies of resistance by reading the Bible as a divining text to get in touch with Badimo, thereby subverting the colonial translations that equated the latter with evil powers.

AbstractThis paper investigates how native languages were used by colonizers to subordinate the colonized. The paper uses an example from the Setswana language of Botswana to investigate the colonial translations of the Bible and compilation of the first dictionaries and to show how they were informed by their time. It focuses on the translation of Badimo (Ancestral Spirits) and other related words to show how the Setswana language was employed for imperial ends in colonial times. The paper also examines how the subsequent versions of the Setswana Bible and dictionaries reflect the growing spirit of decolonization as colonized subjects became involved in writing their own languages. Given that colonial translations remained in circulation beyond the period of colonization, this paper also documents how native readers developed strategies of resistance by reading the Bible as a divining text to get in touch with Badimo, thereby subverting the colonial translations that equated the latter with evil powers.

AbstractThe article carries out a postcolonial feminist reading of Genesis 34, taking up the intersection of gender, race, class and violence in the colonial space.

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AbstractTranslation of Scripture, feminism and post-colonial contexts

AbstractThe link between inequality, poverty and gender discrimination on the other hand is very strong.... The starting point for an adequate response is the understanding that any bid to halt the AIDS epidemic has to include determined efforts to eradicate poverty.

AbstractThe chapter explores translations of Christian hymns and scriptures during the modern colonial times, investigating how colonial ideology permeated these works. It also summaries African scholarly research that has investigated the area, from various regions and languages of the continent.

AbstractThe chapter investigates the link between modern colonialism, violence and biblical texts in the African context.

AbstractThe first part of the paper will spend much of its introductory energies on globalization. The rest of the paper will then explore in broad outlines how globalization is related to postcolonialism, gender and religion. My approach, as the title suggests, is through "looking back in order to look forward", which basically means I will briefly assess some of my published works and their position towards globalization.

AbstractThe article utilises narrative, feminist, postcolonial and HIV and AIDS frameworkd to read Mark 5:21-43

AbstractThe article explores biblical texts and African oratures, foregrounding new questions concerning HIV and AIDS and the various context of precolonial, struggle for independence, post-independence, cold war and globalization. The story of Mark 5: 21-43 is read within these various contexts, underlining the possibility of liberation through the trope of resurrection.

AbstractIntroductionProblematizing of Frameworks of AIR(s)Community, Postcolonialism, and FeminismThe Future of Feminist African Religion

AbstractThe chapter explores the construction of space, postcoloniality, religion and gender among African writers.

AbstractThe article investigates how Purple Hibiscus utilizes intertextuality and explores the intersection of class, gender, race, postcoloniality and violence in a context of theological imagination represented by two siblings, who express their Roman Catholic faith differently. The character of Papa Eugene, whose extreme religiosity and violence pervades the book, is depicted as a colonized subject, who embodies epistemic violence of a colonial past. The decolonizing postcolonial feminist perspective of the book is best modeled by the character of Aunty Ifeoma and how she expresses her Christian faith as an African woman. Whereas, Aunty Ifeoma is an articulate intellectual, women of different status are shown to use different means of resisting patriarchy and violence in the quest for liberating relationships, thereby modeling various expressions of feminist agency. This paper, therefore, explores the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, postcoloniality and power in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s debuting novel, Purple Hibiscus set in a political context of a military coup in Nigeria.

AbstractThis wide-ranging reader provides a comprehensive survey of the interaction between postcolonial criticism and biblical studies. It examines how various empires such as the Persian and Roman affected biblical narratives. It demonstrates how different biblical writers such as Paul, Matthew and Mark handled the challenges of empire. It includes examples of the practical application of postcolonial criticism to biblical texts. It considers contemporary issues such as diaspora, race, representation and territory. It features editorial commentary that draws out the key points to be made and creates a coherent narrative. - Theoretical practices -- Empires old and new -- Empire and exegesis -- Postcolonial concerns

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AbstractIn this article, the biblical Rahab and I ؛ill pay a visit to Precious Rawiotswe or a cup of red bush tea. That is, the narrative of Rahab will provide a reading grid by which to analyse a Botswanan woman character. Precious Ramotswe, created and popularized by Alexander McCall Smiths’ nod. The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. This postcolonial feminist reading of the nods analyses the characterization of Mma Ramotswe through Rahab’s context, highlighting how McCall Smith’s narrator serves as a spy who investigates, reports, and translates Botswanan cultures for the Western world by using her as his mouth piece. The article explores how McCall Smith constructs colonialising feminism through the paradigm of saving brown women from brown men. The article highlights that such a strategy depends on a colonial portrait of black men as docile and over-sexed. While The Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series has won worldwide popularity, this article highlights its dependence on colonially-cultivated tastes of constructing Africa as the Other and a readership that still yearns for such literature in the Western world. McCall Smith thus indulges in colonial images, metaphors, and narrative designs of the Other and through them sates the reading appetites of millions in the Western world.

AbstractThis substantially revised edition has been expanded to include 16 new essays and a new section on postcolonial readings of scripture. It also contains a new introduction and an afterword by the editor, calling attention to new developments in biblical interpretation.

AbstractFor generations, the Bible has been employed by settler colonial societies as a weapon to dispossess Indigenous and racialized peoples of their lands, cultures, and spiritualties. Given this devastating legacy, many want nothing to with it. But is it possible for the exploited and their allies to reclaim the Bible from the dominant powers? Can it serve as an instrument for justice in the cause of the oppressed? Even a nonviolent weapon toward decolonization? In Unsettling the Word, over 60 Indigenous and Settler authors come together to wrestle with the Scriptures, rereading and re-imagining the ancient text for the sake of reparative futures.

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AbstractThis article seeks to trace the fussy boundaries of religion and the public space in the modern colonial archive of southern Africa. It investigates how drawing such boundaries became a central strategy in translating indigenous cultures into sin and creating guilt in communities that did not observe the sacred and secular boundaries. The article uses the attestations of the 19th century letters to Mahoko a Becwana, a London Missionary Society public paper, printed from Kuruman. While the Batswana worldview kneaded religion and all spheres of individual and collective public space, modern western colonial perspectives claimed otherwise. This paper analyses the letters for the intrusion of colonial religion into the public space of Batswana; the colonial agenda to translate key cultural beliefs and activities into the realm of evil and the various responses it initiated - thereby uncovering that perhaps the separation of religion from state has always been a mythological and ideological construction.

AbstractNoting that the ways of interpreting the Bible now practiced in the West are patriarchal and oppressive of those in other parts of the world, Dube offers an alternative interpretation that attends to and respects needs of women in the two-thirds world. In a provocative and insightful reading of the book of Matthew, she shows us how to read the Bible as decolonizing rather than imperialist literature.

AbstractThere has rarely been an effort to address the missing dialogue between British and African scholars, including in regard to the role of British missionaries during the introduction ofthe Bible and Christianity to many parts of Africa. To break this silence, Musa W. Dube and Johanna Stiebert collect expressions from both emerging and established biblical scholars in the United Kingdom and (predominantly) southern African states. Divided into three sets of papers, these contributions range from the injustices of colonialism to postcolonial critical readings of texts, suppression and appropriation; each section complete with a responding essay. Questioning how well UK students understand Africancentred and generated approaches of biblical criticism, whether African scholars consider UK-centric criticism valid, and how accurately the western canon represents current UK based scholarship, these essays illustrate the trends and challenges faced in biblical studies in the two centres of study, and discusses how these questions are better answered with dialogue, rather than in isolation.

AbstractThis book is critically important for Bible translation theorists, postcolonial scholars, church leaders, and the general public interested in the history, politics, and nature of Bible translation work in Africa. It is also useful to students of gender studies, political science, biblical studies, and history-of-colonization studies. The book catalogs the major work that has been undertaken by African scholars. This work critiques and contests colonial Bible translation narratives by privileging the importance African oral vitality in rewriting the meaning of biblical texts in the African sociopolitical, political, and cultural contexts.

AbstractThis volume foregrounds biblical interpretation within the African history of colonial contact, from North Atlantic slavery to the current era of globalization. It reads of the prolonged struggle for justice and of hybrid identities from multifaceted contexts, where the Bible co-exists 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. The contributors are David Tuesday Adamo, Lynn Darden, H. J. M. (Hans) van Deventer, Musa W. Dube, John D. K. Ekem, Ernest M. Ezeogu, Elelwani B. Farisani, Sylvester A. Johnson, Emmanuel Katongole, Malebogo Kgalemang, Temba L. J. Mafico, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Andrew M. Mbuvi, Sarojini Nadar, Elivered Nasambu-Mulongo, Jeremy Punt, Gerrie Snyman, Lovemore Togarasei, Sam Tshehla, Robert Wafawanaka, Robert Wafula, Gerald West, Alice Y. Yafeh-Deigh, and Gosnell L. Yorke.

AbstractThe aim of this study in to analyze Musa Dube’s (b.1964) hermeneutics of the Bible by defining how she uses her theological frameworks, postcolonialism and feminism. Also theological implications of Dube’s work are discussed especially those concerning Christology, mission, and theology of religios. Sources of this study contain Dube’s dissertation and several articles written between 1996-2007. In order to understand Dube’s biblical interpretation it is essential to find out how Dube defines postcolonialism and feminism. Dube is from Botswana and her view of colonialism and postcolonial condition are strongly influences by her personal experiences in Southern Africa. Dube views colonialism as multifaceted phenomenon that has an impact on a range of things from geographical control and vulture to identities of the people involved. Most of all, she views imperialism and colonialism as ideological practices that result in the colonization of mind. Nowadays imperialism is manifested in globalization. Postcolonialism means struggle for alleviating the consequences of oppression. Feminism, according to Dube, is a liberation movement. Women in colonized zones are doubly oppressed, as they are at once under gender oppression in their own society and experience colonial subjugation. Postcolonialism and feminism are intertwined in her work, although postcolonialism seems to have stronger theoretical focus. The aim of Dube’s biblical hermeneutics is to bring about change. Reading must be in service of life and equality. Because the Bible was born in various contexts of colonial rule, it has imperialist ideology rooted in it. For instance the events of Exodus and book of Joshua reveal how God was used in order to legitimate the conquest of the land of Canaan. Canaanites were depicted as idolatrous and covenant with them was prohibited. They were constructed as inferior. IN the Gospels the imperial ideology is present escpecially in mission texts. According to Dube, the person of Jesus as textualized in in the Gospels reflects the colonial context of the Palestine of his time. In order to cope with the rule of the Roman empire, the Jews adopted imperial ideology. This is seen in the mission theology of the Gospels. The Bible aided the Western colonialism in Africa in various ways. It offered motivation to colonialists and missionaries. It also became a text that displaced indigenous stories, and thus alienated people from their own cultural and religious narratives. Also, translations to the indigenous languages were corroding since they were impregnated by colonial ideology. Dube’s reading methods suggest mote democratic ways of interpretation. She highlights the importance of ordinary readers and communities of faith. Her reading with –method involves cooperation between faith community and the scholar. Dube also employs various methods of story-telling in order to interpret the Bible : Dramatic telling and retelling biblical passages with other stories, such as African folk stories and scenes from her own life. Dube brings other stories alongside the Bible in order to dissolve the dominance of the Biblical narrative and to highlight that other stories of meaning and truth exist and have a right to be told. Dube does not read the Bible from the point of view of Christian dogma. Nevertheless, her interpretations have theological implications. Dube’s image of Jesus is ambivalent, since he is both a colonialist who claims all authority for himself, and in some of the sources, a liberator. Dube argues that the biblical mission texts echo unequal relationships . Disciples are sent to teach nations without a mutual need to be taught. Mission is repressive if it claims to a universal answer. Dube opposes the impression of Christianity as the only valid religion. All sacred stories have the right to exist and are equally valid. The value of Dube's hermeneutics does not lie in the area of truth claims but rather in facilitating the reclaim of identity that has been violated by colonial and patriarchal oppression.