Africa Bible Commentary

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Bible gets African interpretation

BBC News, July 5, 2006

The first Bible commentary written exclusively by African theologians has been launched in Kenya.

Written by 70 contributors from 25 countries, the Africa Bible Commentary aims to explain the Bible from an African perspective.

It contains local proverbs and folk lore to help interpret the scriptures.

The commentary also addresses contemporary issues such as HIV/Aids, female genital mutilation, refugees, ethnic conflict and witchcraft.

Published by the Evangelical publisher Zondervan, The Africa Bible Commentary gives a section-by-section interpretation of the gospel.

Its editor, Tokunboh Adeyemo, says the book is not a replacement for the Bible but seeks to make its content clear to Christians in Africa.

He said the 70 African scholars and were asked to be faithful to their own cultures as well as the Bible.

"It is a weaving of word of the Bible and the word of Africa," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.

"We used a lot of African proverbs, a lot of African folk lore and a lot of Africa illustrations and African songs," he said.

Altogether the commentary drew examples from some 250 different cultural groups, he said.

The theologians came from 10 major Christian denominations, although, he noted, that the Roman Catholic Church had not been represented.

Mr Adeyemo said the word of God has always been contextualised and gave the example of St Paul's writings in the Bible.

"When Paul was writing to the Jewish people, he used a lot of Jewish culture and their customs and traditions."

"But the people who brought the Bible to Africa did not bring out these biblical references to Africa."

 

[Contra_Mundum]

I hope this series has only marginal impact.

The purpose of the Bible is for us to be normed by it, and we do that by getting out of our culture (whether Euro or Afro or Asio or whatever) and into the culture of the Bible--which is alien to all of us, living at least 2000 years after the fact. Some folks will have less distance to travel than others. So what? Distance isn't the issue. Presumably the Jews or Arabs have the least distance to travel, and see how hard it is for them "to enter into the kingdom of heaven!"

This "contextualization" mumbo-jumbo is the erection of a barrier to the cross-cultural message of the Bible, which gospel exists to abolish the prejudices between "Jew or Greek, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian Scythian, slave or free" (Col. 3:11), by making one New man. It is the job of the preacher to apply the text to his hearers, and make it relevant.

By the aim of "... weaving the word of God into the word of Africa," is clearly meant an effort to remove the scandal, the confrontational and uncompromising demands of the Word of God to submit to its binding authority--i.e. to change the culture. The Bible is not an "adaptable" document; it is a "transforming" document.

My hope is that the faithful church leaders in Africa will see this effort for what it is: a revisionist bankrolled, subtle back-door method of insinuating the liberal hermeneutic--dressed up in the guise of "respect" for African traditions (that the older "arrogant" orthodox missionaries failed to have)--and reject it.

The old missionary enterprise may have had its failures and cultural arrogance (who doesn't to some degree?). But they were completely aware that they were importing change through a transforming Word, and they were not "ashamed of the gospel." And they loved the individual "Africans" to which they came (a rather diverse group that these "African" commentary producers seem content to reduce to a handy LABEL), not their "culture" per se. They were willing to DIE in a few months or years to bring them that gospel.

Just remember who really cared about the many individuals and people-groups in Africa. The sacrificial missionaries who brought them the alien gospel. Not these "sensitive" polytheistic missionaries of the synthetic gospel.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

It is incumbent upon me to offer a few words in retraction and correction regarding my above post. In the past week, a woman who worked with this project contacted me from off site and offered an alternative perspective on the labors that went into this commentary than I was aware of, simply based on the BBC news report (edited, at that).

First, let me say that failing to "consider the source" or to allow for even unintentional bias when reading a report is a big mistake. At the least I should have been more cautious in my sweeping dismissal, based on the published article. I only offer as my mea culpa the fact that I have been avidly following the world-wide crisis in the Anglican communion (for 3 years now), and was too hasty to perceive in this project a "back-door" effort to promote western decadence, dressed up in "relevancce."

Second, apparently the scope of this project is neither a series, nor a "showcase of African scholarship," as I assumed. Nor does the project originate in the boardroom of an American publisher. It is a one-volume work (or at least a vastly less ambitious exercise) on the Bible as a whole. Treatment of various books are more like chapters in the whole. It originated in Kenya, and involved the labors of a number of humble but committed (not to mention intelligent) pastors and teachers. Apparently, the original goal of the project was much more along the lines of putting a compact reference work into the hands of a rather broad cross-section of African pastors (perhaps more in the sub-saharan regions), many of whom have little or no access to any materials for preaching, other than the Bible itself, and very little higher education; certainly practically no library access--theirs or someone else's.

Third, a western publisher or two bought the rights for reduplication and promotion in western markets. Hence, the remarks on "contextualization" or the "failures" of missionaries should be understood in a much different light, when it is seen that these comments were 1) edited down, 2) presented for broad readership in a more western context, and 3) refer to an already completed work, and not to an ongoing series produced under western auspices and presumably open to marketing pressures for political-correctness.

It is entirely possible that westerners--both those of "African descent" and those not--might actually benefit from seeing such a work, provided that it promotes a coherent message, a consistent biblical ethic, universal theology, and a non-tendential exegetical hermeneutic. In other words, perhaps some westerners could be persuaded to abandon an "experiential" theology for one grounded in the text, if produced by persons they harbor few "suspicions" of, indeed, are predisposed to listen to.

I say these things cautiously, not yet having had the opportunity of reading any portion of the actual material myself, but at the least I owe this one lady the honor of offering her counter opinion--that we on the Puritan Board, anyway, would most likely approve of the moral and theological tone of this work.

Lastly, in the near future I intend to post a couple of links provided to me by my correspondent, including a listing of contributors, a full (unedited) interview with the book's original editor/publisher, and an excerpt from the volume dealing (if I recall correctly) with the book of James. Those I will edit into this post.

May Jesus Christ be praised, from Cape Town, to Tangier, from Suez to the Horn, to Cote d'Ivorie. And in all points in between.

"All idols underfoot be trod!
The Lord is God! The Lord is God!
To God all praise and glory."

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

Thanks for sharing these thoughts, Bruce. Although I do not look to the BBC for a Biblical perspective on anything, and although I too have not read the work in question, I will retain a healthy skepticism about it. I recognize that we are all influenced by our surrounding culture, even another great African Biblical commentor, Augustine, but the Rick Warren and John Stott endorsements of the ABC leave me cold. But if there is good in it, well, and I do pray for the undiluted Word of God to continue to be effectual in reforming that continent, which in some ways has advanced spiritually even as ours has declined.

Ps. 68.31: Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.