How indigenous is the Bible? Challenges facing 21st century South African biblical scholarship
As Catherine Odora-Hoppers and Makhale-Mahlangu (1998) argue, By way of definition, the word indigenous refers to the root, something natural or innate (to). It is an integral part of culture. Indigenous knowledge systems refer to the combination of knowledge systems encompassing technology, social,...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2004
|
| In: |
Journal for semitics
Year: 2004, Volume: 13, Issue: 2, Pages: 139-158 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
|
| Summary: | As Catherine Odora-Hoppers and Makhale-Mahlangu (1998) argue, By way of definition, the word indigenous refers to the root, something natural or innate (to). It is an integral part of culture. Indigenous knowledge systems refer to the combination of knowledge systems encompassing technology, social, economic and philosophical learning, or educational, legal and governance systems. It is knowledge relating to the technological, social, institutional, scientific and developmental, including those vocabularies used in the liberation struggles. Where does this place the Bible? The text is usually regarded as archaic and believed to hold knowledge and thought systems for ethical guidance. The Biblical text is used at tertiary institutions of learning by students and professors for interpretation and analysis, and 'academic conclusions' are drawn about life, for life, against life, in life and out of life. This, in short, makes the Bible a contextual text that has developed diachronically and synchronically on the basis of human influences. In the course of this development, the text has had to adapt and be adapted. The indigenous influence on and basis of the biblical text cannot be ignored. How much research done on the Biblical text takes cognisance of indigenous aspects of the Bible? This paper argues that biblical interpretation has to take into account two levels of the indigenous nature of the Bible: firstly, that of the biblical world that shaped and finally produced the biblical text and, secondly, that of the readers of the text. This paper strives to show how indigenous reading has to be revisited, and that this revisitation needs to show challenges that exist in the indigenous reading process of the text. This paper strongly argues for a shift in dealing with the biblical text, in that the voices of readers and their rights to read have to be taken into account. The current research efforts tend to use, consciously and / or unconsciously, the voices and knowledge of indigenous people's readings of the text without acknowledging the ownership of these voices and knowledge, making intellectual property rights (IPR) a central challenge for scholars. In the twenty-first century, biblical research and studies cannot remain aloof from this challenge. The question then becomes: How has research into indigenous reading of the Bible taken account of the ownership of the indigenous people's reading, science and knowledge of biblical texts? It is time for biblical scholarship to converse meaningfully within the debates around indigenous knowledge and science. After all, the Bible is indigenous, was produced by indigenous processes and continues to be read by the majority of indigenous people. What needs to be examined is how indigenous this text becomes for scholars and researchers of biblical studies. |
|---|---|
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal for semitics
|
| Persistent identifiers: | HDL: 10520/EJC101034 |