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T ran s fo rm i n g s c r i p T u r e s This page intentionally left blank K aT h e r i n e c l ay Ba s sa r d transforming scriptures afr i c an am e r i c a n Wom en W r i T e r s a n d T h e B i B l e The University of Georgia Press Athens and London Published by the University of Georgia Press Portions of chapter 2 previously appeared as Athens, Georgia 30602 “Private Interpretations: Te Defense of Slav- www.ugapress.org ery, Nineteenth-Century Hermeneutics, and © 2010 by Katherine Clay Bassard the Poetry of Frances E. W. Harper” in Tere All rights reserved Before Us: Religion, Literature, and Culture Designed by Mindy Basinger Hill from Emerson to Wendell Berry, ed. Roger Set in 10/13 Minion Pro Lundin, 110–40 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Printed digitally in the United States of Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007). © 2007 Wm. America B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Mich. Reprinted by permission of the Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication publisher. All rights reserved. Data Bassard, Katherine Clay, 1959– An earlier version of chapter 5 appeared as Transforming scriptures : African American “ ‘Beyond Mortal Vision’: Harriet E. Wilson’s women writers and the Bible / Katherine Clay Our Nig and the American Racial Dream- Bassard. Text” in Female Subjects in Black and White: p. cm. Race, Psychoanalysis, Feminism, ed. Elizabeth Includes bibliographical references and index. Abel, Barbara Christian, and Helene Moglen, isbn-13: 978-0-8203-3090-7 (hardcover) 187-200 (Berkeley: University of California isbn-10: 0-8203-3090-6 (hardcover) Press, 1997). Reprinted by permission of the 1. American literature—African American publisher. authors—History and criticism. 2. American literature—Women authors—History and criticism. 3. Bible—In literature. 4. African American women—Religion. 5. African American women in literature. I. Title. ps153.n5b34 2010 810.9'3822082—dc22 2009032883 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available contents v ii Acknowledgments 1 inTroducTion. Te Bible and African American Women Writers: A Literary Witness 6 parT one. TrouBling hermeneuTics 9 chapTer one. Talking Mules and Troubled Hermeneutics: Black Women’s Biblical Self-Disclosures 25 chapTer TWo. Private Interpretations: Te Bible Defense of Slavery and Nineteenth-Century Racial Hermeneutics 4 8 parT TWo. Transforming scripTures 51 chapTer Three. Sampling the Scriptures: Maria W. Stewart and the Genre of Prayer 6 7 chapTer four. Hannah’s Craf: Biblical Passing in Te Bondwoman’s Narrative 7 9 chapTer five. “Beyond Mortal Vision”: Identifcation and Miscegenation in the Joseph Cycle and Harriet E. Wilson’s Our Nig 93 chapTer six. And the Greatest of Tese: Eros, Philos, and Agape in Two Contemporary Black Women’s Novels 1 07 Appendix 133 Notes 1 43 Bibliography 1 53 Index of Scriptural References 1 59 General Index This page intentionally left blank acknowledgments Verbum Domini Deo gratias! As with any project that one has worked on for the better part of a decade, I owe thanks to numerous people scattered abroad in many locations. Funding by a Pew Evangelical Scholars grant (1999–2000), a Ford Foundation Post- Doctoral Fellowship (1998–99), and residencies at the Graduate Teological Union in Berkeley, California (1998–99), and the Virginia Center for the Hu- manities in Charlottesville, Virginia (Fall 2005), were essential in providing the time and space to work. Tanks are also owed to Virginia Commonwealth University for a Career Development Enhancement Grant (Spring and Sum- mer 2008) and course relief to fnish the manuscript. Alaina Hohnarth, my research assistant, was invaluable throughout the f- nal year of manuscript preparation and research. Undergraduate and graduate students in various classes — “Te Bible as Literature” and “Bible and Literary Teory” at uc Berkeley, “Bible and African American Literature” at vcu, and a summer graduate seminar for the Pew Younger Scholars program, “Created Identities: Christianity and Literary Teory” — inspired me and listened to long digressions about “Te Book.” Colleagues in the American Literature and Religion group — Roger Lundin, Laurence Buell, Harold Bush, Andrew Delbanco, James Dougherty, John Gatta, Barbara Packer, Gail MacDonald, Brian Ingrafa, Mark Walhout, and Ralph Wood — ofered critique and support for parts of this work and general col- legiality and inspiration. Albert Raboteau, Mark Noll, and John Staufer, who joined us in Cambridge for a symposium, were also a great help in furthering my thinking on religion and literature. I owe a special thanks to Roger Lundin, of Wheaton College, for opportunities to share and publish my work in a vari- ety of venues. Special thanks also to Ralph Wood, who laid the foundation for this building by piquing my interest in the intersection of religion and literature as a freshman at Wake Forest. I also wish to thank the wonderful people at the University of Georgia Press — especially my editors, Erika Stevens and Melissa Buchanan — for all their help in bringing this project to completion. I am among those blessed with a close, supportive spouse, family, and friend network. My life partner, Mark Bassard, and our two children, Angelique and Austin; my parents and parents-in-law; and a host of brothers, sisters-in-law, uncles, aunts, and friends — all have provided a secure net of safety and love within which the vision for this book has fourished. Tanks be to God for His indescribable gif! viii ac KnoWl edgm enT s T ran s fo rm i n g s c r i p T u r e s