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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Bible and economics: historical and hermeneutical reflections from South Africa |
Author: | West, Gerald |
Year: | 2004 |
Periodical: | African Journal of Biblical Studies |
Volume: | 20 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 93-122 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Bible African theology development |
Abstract: | Central to the work of the Ujaama Centre for Biblical and Theological Community Development and Research at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa) is a Bible reading process that has come to be called 'contextual Bible study'. Implicit in the notion of 'contextual' as it is used here is commitment to a particular context: the context of the poor, working class and marginalized. Contextual Bible studies emerged in the darkest hours of apartheid in the 1980s, when groups of ordinary black African Bible 'readers' - whether literate or not - and socially engaged biblical scholars began to meet to read the Bible together. This paper sketches the dimensions of the contextual Bible study process as it is understood at the Ujaama Centre. This process includes four core commitments: beginning with reality as it is perceived 'from below'; collaborative interpretation; critical interpretation; and a commitment to concrete and specific plans of action for social transformation. The paper presents an example of a Bible study at the Ujaama Centre, demonstrating its reading methodology. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |