Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation PDF
Preview Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation
R.S. SUGIR THARA4 JAH I Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/postcolonialcritO000sugi POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION ji an : ; 7 - - a : am, POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION R. S. Sugirtharajah OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © R. S. Sugirtharajah 2002 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2002 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 978-0-19-875269-1 Typeset in Adobe Minion by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped me in writing this book. I would like to thank all those at the Oxford University Press. Angela Griffin who first supported the idea of this book, and Fiona Kinnear, Jo Stanbridge, Matthew Cotton, and Sarah Hyland, who expertly steered it through the different stages of its production; Lynn Childres for copy- editing the manuscript with assiduity and humour; Heung Soon Park for photocopying kilos of articles; the staff of the Orchard Learning Centre— Michael Gale, Deborah Drury, Jane Saunders, Pauline Hartley, Rachel Hayhow, Julie Farruggia, Dianne McCann, Celia Evans, and Judith Davies for their ever friendly and helpful service; Cecil Hargreaves for his invalu- able help with the sixth chapter; and Markus Vinzent, the head of the Department, for his encouragement and support. Besides the people mentioned above, there is a coterie of people who have become part of my publishing project and have over the years shown deep interest in all that I do. Dan O’Connor, with whom I have discussed many aspects of the book and who has not only embellished the script but also has saved it from many errors and infelicities. Ralph Broadbent has always been at hand whenever I ran into computing problems. Lorraine Smith went through some parts of the book with her usual diligence. Finally to my wife Sharada without whose intellectual support and care nothing would have been possible. R.S.S. slogNE”G ‘EY 653 — omit teas yore! i ba Cee cri ve baamiyhs ea So any 7 — ApGe a PRS (RATS ut : i -_ _ Sul ange ape gariewsd aon ens) yas) Grae aap ee er batiaad xtra ential 2 at) ae ene) Anilar! bee geew ees eai t Bunt 24! 10) eee rgunbl &S — Ce > rh mie eaten aap ea ga ee NN eg cad ” e“ m x. iwi isa © AAO die aae CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PART I: POSTCOLONIAL CONSTRUALS CHARTING THE AFTERMATH: A REVIEW OF POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM The arrival of postcolonial criticism Creative literature The contours of postcolonial criticism Clarification of the lexicon Postcolonialism and biblical studies Empire and theological reflections Postcolonial criticism and cognate disciplines—feminism Global intentions and postcolonial concerns Is the United States postcolonial? Concerns, temptations, conclusions REDRESS, REGENERATION, REDEMPTION: A SURVEY OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Dissident readings Resistant readings Heritagist readings Nationalistic readings Liberationist readings Dissentient readings Concluding remarks CODING AND DECODING: POSTCOLONIAL CRITICISM AND BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION Orientalist tendencies Decoding texts Jesus and the colonial context Vili | CONTENTS Colonial trauma and madness: The case of the Gerasene Demoniac 91 Transcending the text, visualizing the reality 94 Propagandist literature or confessional writings 97 CONVERGENT TRAJECTORIES? LIBERATION HERMENEUTICS AND POSTCOLONIAL BIBLICAL CRITICISM 103 Marks of classic liberation hermeneutics 104 Gutiérrez’s Job 107 Tamez’s Paul 110 Liberation hermeneutics and its entanglements 112 Religion and liberation 115 Postcolonialism and liberation hermeneutics as companions in struggle 117 PART II: POSTCOLONIAL PREOCCUPATIONS THE VERSION ON WHICH THE SUN NEVER SETS: THE ENGLISH BIBLE AND ITS AUTHORIZING TENDENCIES The context of the English Bible The rise of the English Bible The Englishness of the Bible Simple people and the simplicity of the Scripture: The Geneva Bible A text for the empire: A post-imperial footnote Colonial parallels Concluding remarks BLOTTING THE MASTER'S COPY: LOCATING BIBLE TRANSLATIONS Confusing and confused tongues Dismissing and embracing Translations and their preoccupations
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