Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: Interdisciplinary Intersections

Description

Postcolonial studies has recently made significant inroads into biblical studies, giving rise to numerous conference papers, articles, essays and books. 'Postcolonial Biblical Criticism' is the most in-depth and multifaceted introduction to this emerging field to date. It probes postcolonial biblical criticism from a number of different but interrelated angles in order to bring it into as sharp a focus as possible, so that its promise - and potential pitfalls - can be better appreciated. This volume carefully positions postcolonial biblical criticism in relation to other important political and theoretical currents in contemporary biblical studies: feminism; racial/ethnic studies; poststructuralism; and Marxism. Alternating between hermeneutical and exegetical reflection, the essays cumulatively isolate and evaluate the definitive features of postcolonial biblical criticism. Such a mapping of postcolonial biblical criticism as a whole has never before been undertaken in such explicit and detailed terms. The contributors include Roland Boer, Laura E. Donaldson, David Jobling, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Stephen D. Moore and Fernando F. Segovia.

Fernando F. Segovia is Oberlin Graduate Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity, at the Divinity School, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. His recent publications include Postcolonial Biblical Criticism (T&T Clark, 2005), coedited with Stephen Moore; Toward a New Heaven and a New Earth: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza (Orbis Books, 2003). Stephen D. Moore is Edmund S. Janes Professor of New Testament Studies at the Theological School, Drew University, USA.

The assemblage of biblical scholars who have contributed to this book is its major strength. These are all well-published authors, most of whom have spent decades traversing the theoretical underpinnings of various critical approaches to the Bible - poststructuralism, postmodernism, Marxism, ideological criticism, feminism, and race/ethnicity.before turning to postcolonialism. .. for many biblical scholars, most of whom may be just beginning to reflect on concepts such as hybridity, mimicry, ambivalence, dislocation, diaspora, colonialism, and the like, this book should find a ready reading audience. The authors have a firm grasp of the issues at stake in interpreting the Bible along postcolonial lines. The book deserves to be read widely and would be especially useful in upper-division undergraduate classes in Bible and in seminary courses dealing with hermeneutical issues. -- Jeffrey L Staley * Review of Biblical Literature *