Wednesday 1 November 2017

Discovering the Bible in the Non-biblical World




The Author is as an Asian feminist theologian, tackle the issue of hermeneutics from very realistic questions.

The starting questions are:
Is the current biblical interpretation, embrace all the readers?
How has the biblical hermeneutics changed over time, and what were its relationships with socio-political forces; including patriarchal traditions, colonialism, and many other historical phenomena?
Are there not marginalised groups of people that the mainstream hermeneutics ignored?
To engage much deeper to look at the questions,
Are the readers in the East experience and come to the similar interpretation to that of the readers in the West?
Are the female experience of the Bible and its interpretation the same as the male's experience?
Are the people of different race read and interpret the bible the same?
The cultural context changes over time, are the hermeneutics remained the same or have changed, or even has been a tool for justification?

Just as the title of the book suggests, the author tackles this head-on.
She looks at how the interpretation was manipulated with different readers with privileged positions, and very often, this causes the readers in the non-biblical world uncomfortable as the book remains the 'foreign'

The hermeneutics that the slave-masters' use of the bible to justify their actions, cannot be shared by the people with their ancestors who were the receiving end of the biblical hermeneutical abuse.

The hermeneutics that the dominant men used to justify their 'rule over the society' cannot be shared by the female believers.

The hermeneutics that the colonial merchants and navy chaplain used cannot be shared by the peasants.

The hermeneutics that the bourgeogies used cannot be shared by the proletariats.

The modern strands of theologies such as black theology, feminist theology, liberation theology, minjung theology, environmental or green theology are largely due to the disjuncture that the readers and believers felt about the mainstream hermeneutics.



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