Introducing Ordinary African Readers' Hermeneutics : A Case Study of the Agikuyu Encounter with the Bible.
Title:
Introducing Ordinary African Readers' Hermeneutics : A Case Study of the Agikuyu Encounter with the Bible.
Author:
Kinyua, Johnson Kiriaku.
ISBN:
9783035301526
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (394 pages)
Series:
Religions and Discourse ; v.54
Religions and Discourse
Contents:
Contents - vii -- Acknowledgments - xi -- Abbreviations - xiii -- Chapter 1 - Introduction - 1 -- 1.1 Overall Primary Aim and Secondary Aim - 1 -- 1.2 A Case Method Approach - 3 -- 1.3 Motivation for this Study - 4 -- 1.4 Presumptions - 6 -- 1.5 Importance of this Study - 8 -- 1.6 Chapter Outline - 9 -- Chapter 2 - Biblical Hermeneutics and Postcolonial Theory - 11 -- 2.1 Biblical Hermeneutics in Africa - 11 -- 2.2 Re-Defining Hermeneutics - 16 -- 2.3 Biblical Historical Criticism and Postcolonial Contexts - 18 -- 2.4 Methodology - 20 -- 2.5 Limitations of a Multi-disciplinary Approach - 32 -- Chapter 3 - Bible and Colonial Identities: Colonial Constructions, Representations and Marginality - 33 -- 3.1 Introduction - 33 -- 3.2 Colonial Principles of Legitimation - 38 -- 3.3 Conclusion - 67 -- Chapter 4 - Location of Culture in the Colonial Hermeneutics: Ambivalence, Mimicry, and Hybridity - 71 -- 4.1 Introduction - 72 -- 4.2 The Bible and Literacy: Colonial Ambivalence and Anxieties - 77 -- 4.3 Cultural Doubt and Liminal Space - 88 -- 4.4 Mimicry and Double Vision: Colonial Hermeneutics and Orthodoxy - 93 -- 4.5 Hybridity and the Aesthetics - 106 -- 4.6 Conclusion - 112 -- Chapter 5 - Bible Translation and the Discourse of Colonalism: The Gĩkũyũ Bible - 115 -- 5.1 Introduction - 115 -- 5.2 A Summary of the Evolution of the Gĩkũyũ Bible - 120 -- 5.3 The Colonial Situation and Issues of Translation - 130 -- 5.4 Translation as an "In-between" Space: Creolisation - 149 -- 5.5 Conclusion - 161 -- Chapter 6 - The Role of Common Sense Hermeneutics: The Translated Texts and the Types of Reading - 165 -- 6.1 Introduction - 165 -- 6.2 Common Sense Hermeneutics - 166 -- 6.3 Reading Strategies - 171 -- 6.4 Conclusion - 209 -- Chapter 7 - Resistance as a Discursive Practice - 211 -- 7.1 Introduction - 211 -- 7.2 Subversive Readings - 212.
7.3 Language as a "figural ploy" - 231 -- 7.5 Potential Hermeneutical Optic - 235 -- 7.6 Conclusion - 240 -- Chapter 8 - The Discourse of Resistance and the "Hidden Transcript": The Revival Option - 243 -- 8.1 Introduction - 243 -- 8.2 Detention and Villaginisation - 246 -- 8.3 Role of the Bible - 255 -- 8.4 The Revival Movement and the Colonial Churches - 269 -- 8.5 Post-Mau-Mau/Post-Mission Hermeneutics - 284 -- 8.6 Conclusion - 287 -- Chapter 9 - Towards an Ordinary African Readers' Hermeneutics - 289 -- 9.1 Introduction - 289 -- 9.2 The Limitations of "Pre-Critical" Common Sense Hermeneutics - 290 -- 9.3 Envisioning New Horizon: The Scholarly and the Ordinary Reader - 294 -- 9.4 The Postcolonial Theory and the Ordinary Reader - 303 -- Chapter 10 - General Conclusion - 327 -- Appendix I - 331 -- Appendix II - 333 -- Bibliography - 335 -- Index - 365.
Abstract:
This book introduces the concept ordinary African readers' hermeneutics in a study of the reception of the Bible in postcolonial Africa. It looks beyond the scholarly and official church-based material to the way in which the Bible, and discourses on or from the Bible, are utilized within a wide range of diverse contexts. The author shows that ordinary readers can and did engage in meaningful and liberating hermeneutics. Using the Agikuyu's encounter with the Bible as an example, he demonstrates that what colonial discourses commonly circulated about Africans were not always the truth, but mere representations that were hardly able to fix African identities, as they were often characterized by certain ambivalences, anxieties and contradictions. The hybridized Biblical texts, readings and interpretations generated through retrieval and incorporation of the defunct pre-colonial past created interstices that became sites for assimilation, questioning and resistance. The book explores how Africans employed allusion as a valid method of interpretation, showing how the critical principle of interpretation lies not in the Bible itself, but in the community of readers willing to cultivate dialogical imagination in order to articulate their vision. The author proposes an African hermeneutical theory, which involves the fusion of both the scholarly and the ordinary readers in the task of biblical interpretation within a specific socio-cultural context.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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