Global Voices: Reading the Bible in the Majority World

Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 9781619700093
Type: Paperback

This book, a collection of essays from ethnically diverse scholars familiar with both non-Western and Western hermeneutic traditions, explores what it means to allow the interpretations of the non-Western church to be heard—heeded and appreciated—by the Western church and its educated elite.
Evangelical scholars, college and seminary professors, trained evangelical pastors, and evangelicals of many nationalities and ethnicities who minister in the West will find these collected essays fascinating and encouraging.
“As someone who was descended from immigrants from Okinawa to Hawaii, the most racially and culturally diverse state in the Union, I can keenly appreciate the insight the writers of the essays in this volume have offered as to the relevance of particular Scriptures to a variety of cultural and ethnic groups throughout the world and to immigrant communities in the United States.”
— Edwin Yamauchi, Professor Emeritus, Miami University
"This is a little book with a big vision. It is written by a rich array of global voices. It challenges us to read the Bible in a fresh way with an awareness of a bigger world. It opens up new angles on the biblical text and asks us to embrace a greater diversity of voices and topics in our work. It is a needed word, well worth the reading and reflection."
— Darrell L Bock, Executive Director of Cultural Engagement, Center for Christian Leadership, Senior Research Professor of New, Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary
" Global Voices opens new vistas of the multiethnic and multicultural aspects of the Bible and illustrates the indispensability of its interpretation from multiethnic and multicultural perspectives. This book is enlightening, captivating, enchanting, and inspiring, attributable to the rich multicultural wisdom and insights of the brilliant multiethnic authors with backgrounds in hybrid cultures. I highly recommend this book to Western as well as non-Western Christian leaders."
— Andrew Park, Professor of Theology and Ethics, United Theological Seminary
“Rarely does a book reflect the thoughts of other cultures as does Global Voices: Reading the Bible in the Majority World. In the opening paragraphs, the reader’s attention is riveted by the editors’ introductory comments, “When Christians from various cultures enter into dialogue with each other, we often find elements of the biblical message that Christians from any one culture, with their own biases and blinders, have sometimes missed” (1-2). Craig Keener and M. Daniel Carroll Rodas have creatively lined up in this volume a diverse unity of voices that include five provocative chapters, each followed by an incisive critical response. The result is a collection of stimulating essays engaged in a passionate reading of biblical texts in conversation with the socioreligious, political and economic realities of their authors and communities—an honest reminder to western readers that there is not such a thing as an objective biblical interpreter. One’s reading of the Bible is always shaped by one’s cultural constructions of reality.
“As a native of Sénégal, West Africa, I found Global Voices to be a refreshing catalyst for listening to immigrants’ appropriations of the stories of Abraham, Daniel and Ruth, Sri Lankans’ reading of Galatians, Africans’ reverence of the sacredness of the Bible and appreciation of the role and significance of the Holy Spirit and prayer. This is done not through a mere translation of lexical terms but ideas in dialogue with one’s sociohistorical, religious, economic and cultural milieu. In many ways, this original, probing and stimulating scholarship makes Global Voices a promissory brief indispensable for reading and understanding the Bible globally—a delicate and unfailing gift for the academy and the church.”
— Aliou Cissé Niang, Union Theological Seminary
Chapters:
• Introduction—Craig Keener and M. Daniel Carroll R.
• Reading the Bible through Other Lenses: New Vistas from an Hispanic Diaspora Perspective—M. Daniel Carroll R.
• Response—K. K. Yeo
• Neither Tamil Nor Sinhalese: Reading Galatians in Sri Lanka—David A. DeSilva
• Response—Nijay Gupta
• Word Becoming Flesh [On Appropriation]: Engaging Daniel as a Survival Manual—Barbara M. Leung Lai
• Response—Chloe Sun
• Reading Ephesians 6:10–18 in the Light of African Pentecostal Spirituality—J. Ayodeji Adewuya
• Response—Daniel Darko
• The Bible as Specimen, Talisman, and Dragoman in Africa: A look at Some African uses of the Psalms and 1 Corinthians 12–14—Grant LeMarquand
• Response—Osvaldo Padilla
Reviews
White Europeans and North Americans have for some time been a minority in the Christian Church worldwide, but coming to terms with that fact has been a slow process. There is often still the assumption that European theologians and institutions have the necessary understanding of the truth which they then offer to less educated ‘foreigners’ for the benefit of the latter. Only gradually is it coming to be realised that Christians from many countries have a role to play in understanding and living out the revelation of God in the Bible. Indeed western white Christians have a great deal to learn from brothers and sisters in the ‘majority (non-white) world’, where cultures can often be much closer to the biblical world than is the case in the West. The chapters in this book bring together contributors from diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Nigerian, Guatemalan, Sinhalese, Indian, Canadian, American, Japanese-American and Chinese-American. Ten papers are offered, in pairs, with the second being a response to the first in each pair. Subjects covered include how to read the Bible from a Hispanic perspective, applying Galatians in the context of Sri Lanka, lessons from Daniel, spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6, and African uses of the Psalms. There is much here to stimulate thought, both in agreement and in disagreement, but there can be no doubt that Christian voices from the majority world have much to say and need to be given attention and respect.
--David McKay, Reformed Theological Journal
Editor Bios
Craig Keener is Professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary. He has authored 15 books, three of which have won biblical studies book awards in Christianity Today. His IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (1993) has sold more than half a million copies. He was ordained in an African-American denomination in 1991 and worked as an associate minister in an African-American megachurch in Philadelphia for a decade. His wife Médine is from the Congo in Central Africa, and he works with his wife for ethnic reconciliation in the U.S. and Africa.
M. Daniel Carroll R, who celebrates his heritage from both Guatemala and the United States, is Distinguished Professor of Old Testament at Denver Theological Seminary. He serves on the international editorial boards of Religion & Theology (South Africa) and DavarLogos (Argentina), is a contributing editor to Prism (the journal of Evangelicals for Social Action), and is an editorial consultant for Perspectivas (of the Hispanic Theological Initiative) and Ex Auditu.
Explore This Book
Table of contents
Sample Chapter
Introduction
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