AbstractMusa W. Dube (born 28 July 1964), also known as Musa Wenkosi Dube Shomanah, is a Botswanan feminist theologian, known for her work in postcolonial biblical scholarship.

AbstractWe can understand that the Circle must work on two dimensions to provide a future for new woman theology in Africa. The first dimension is based on the intuitive fundamental and innovative sense of a woman from Ghana, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, that leads to the creation of the Circle: she impulsed the idea that women should make their own theology from their daily-life experiences and their subjectivity as women, in order to think on faith and Gospel in a different way. It is necessary to question that intuitive sense. The second dimension aims to revisit the great personalities of African woman theologians of the Circle. What are the essential points of their research? How has the research changed African theology? I particularly think of Musimbi Kanyoro, Nyambura Njoroge and Musa Dubé in the Africa English zone and Helene Yinda, Liz Vuadi, Kasa Dovi and Bernadette Mbuyi Beya in Africa French zone. The essence of their thinking is still actual and that is why they are good enough to project in to the future. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article presents the history of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians from creation to now. Issues related to traditional culture, gender and sexual-based violence, gender-based injustice, and HIV and AIDS are discussed under different approaches such as the biblical approach, hermeneutical approach, ethical approach, historical approach and practical approach. The impact of African Women Theologians speaking French will be particularly highlighted.

AbstractThis paper offers a comparative analysis of two 'women-centered-women' theologians who come from different contexts, yet speak to deeply connected issues of feminist eco-theology: Botswana biblical scholar and General Coordinator of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians, Musa Dube, and American eco-feminist, Sallie McFague. The analysis draws on McFague's book, and Sallie McFague appeal to their readers to take seriously -- in our theology as it is both thought and lived -- the urgency of the precarious moment we are in together as a planet. The paper explores points of divergence and of connection in Dube's and McFague's propositions for thinking theologically about the sacredness of the planet we inhabit.

AbstractScholars of African Christianity have tended to celebrate African women purely as charismatic founders of movements. Alternatively, they focus on African women’s active participation in church life. Rarely have young African Christian women been acknowledged for their academic achievements and leadership in addressing contemporary issues that affect the continent. This article examines Musa W Dube of Botswana’s contribution to the African Church’s response to HIV and AIDS. The first part provides the historical background relevant for appreciating Dube’s work. The second part examines Dube’s activism in encouraging an effective religious response to HIV and AIDS in Africa. The third part reviews Dube’s contribution to the integration of HIV and AIDS in theology and religious studies in Africa. The fourth section provides an overview of critiques of Dube’s HIV and AIDS work. Overall, the article acknowledges Dube’s leadership in the church’s response to the HIV epidemic in Africa and beyond.

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.

AbstractMy thesis critically examines the current debate between biblical feminists Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Musa Dube and the accuracy in their depictions of one another. While both women maintain the importance of building strategic feminist alliances in a global context, their engagement, spanning over a decade, frustrates this goal in the manner in which they portray each other’s scholarly position. Based on close readings of key texts, historical dates, contexts, and dialogue partners, my thesis claims that both women too quickly reify and homogenize the other in her theoretical and social “positions” within the feminist biblical landscape. In each case, the depiction polarizes the other and leads to a misreading which effectively weakens or limits dialogue and solidarity within global feminist biblical scholarship. In addition to this significance, my thesis seeks to contribute to contemporary feminist methodologies which witness the broader complexity and changing fields of feminist dialogues and debates.

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.

AbstractAlthough the gospels report many arguments between Jesus and his opponents, Jesus often engages in non-oppositional (both/and) discourse to show us how to get beyond binary, oppositional thinking in order to love one another, including our enemies. I examine the gospel discourses through several lenses: * AnaLouise Keating, who offers a womanist perspective of discourse. [AnaLouise Keating, Transformation Now!: Toward a Post-Oppositional Politics of Change (University of Illinois Press. Kindle Edition, 2013)] * Musa Dube, who offers an African post-colonial perspective of scriptural analysis.[Musa Dube, Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000)] * My own dissection of argument broken into ethic, strategy and tactics. Most advocates of nonviolence focus on why it is important. I start with the ethic of nonviolence as a given and explore how Jesus’ words and discourse undergird and guide his actions, especially in countering violence and hard-headed opposition. I examine those gospel passages in which Jesus counters the oppositional thinkers and doers of his day with non-oppositional responses and challenges. I focus on his discussions with Satan, co-equal critics, followers, the powers of empire, and outsiders.

AbstractThe era of Globalization - characterized by the end of the bi-polar world order and the expansion of neo-liberal capitalism as well as the compression of the world through new communication technologies - has already stamped its mark on theology. Especially those theologies which consider themselves as contextual undergo deep transformations from localization to deterritorialization, from being mono-cultural to hybridity and from being community centered to multiple belonging. The shift from contextualization to glocalization that becomes visible behind these processes is traced in the works of two African and one Asian woman theologian as well as one Asian male theologian. While Musimbi Kanyoro, Kenya, is still practicing a late modern form of inculturation theology, with the works of Musa Dube, Botswana, Kwok Pui-Lan, us, and R.S. Sugirtharajah, UK, postcolonialism irrupts into contextual and intercultural theological reflection. As a consequence the pendulum swings from the particular back to the universal, now defined as exchange and interdependence.

AbstractThe Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians is an interfaith international movement to promote research and writing concerning: Women in Culture and Religion, Cultural and Biblical Hermeneutics, the History of Women, and Ministries and Theological Education and Formation. Through its objectives, the Circle hopes to create space for women in theology. This study focuses on the contributions of Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Musa W. Dube, and the Centre for Constructive Theology to promote the missions of the Circle. Oduyoye proclaims the double sufferings of patriarchy and imperialism that African women still face even years after liberation from colonialism. Musa Dube calls on biblical readers to demonstrate awareness of not only patriarchal literary strategies within the Bible, but those of imperialism as well. She hopes this decolonizing feminist conscious will foster liberating ways of interdependence. At the Centre for Constructive Theology, Isabel Phiri improves the opportunity for women to form and assert their own identity and autonomy through programs that link theology and faith to the practical concerns and needs of the women. With boldness and courage these theologians envision a world where women and men, the powerless and powerful, live in balanced cooperation.

AbstractTitle of the book unavailable

AbstractThis article tells the story of Musa Dube's interpretation of the Bible. It is not a biography of Dube's personal life but rather a story of how she has contributed to the direction of African biblical scholarship; it is a story of how biblical scholars can participate in the life of Christian communi-ties. The article begins with a brief biography of Dube. This section is followed by a panorama of the history of African biblical scholarship. The methods Dube uses to interpret the Bible are then reviewed. The article concludes by showing that although Dube has built on a foundation that was laid by earlier African biblical scholars, her contribu-tion has been revolutionary.

AbstractThe study of feminist biblical hermeneutics is very diverse; it can mean different things to different people. As a result, there is much disagreement concerning how to read Scriptures from a feminist perspective in the correct way. For a proper study of the Scriptures from a feminist point of view, one must converse with other forms of feminist hermeneutics. Therefore, using excerpts from Mark 5 and John 4, this thesis will create a dialogue between the theologians Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Musa Dube, and John Paul II. In doing so, this thesis will attempt to show a more comprehensive feminist biblical hermeneutic using theological perspectives from Catholic Western feminism, Protestant Two-Thirds World feminism, and the Magisterium.