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Asian American biblical hermeneutics or Asian American biblical interpretation is the study of the interpretation of the Christian Bible, informed by Asian American history and experiences.
Mary F. Foskett traces the roots of Asian American biblical hermeneutics to the rise of Asian biblical hermeneutics, as initially developed in the 1970s and 1980s by Kosuke Koyama, C. S. Song, Archie C. C. Lee, and R. S. Sugirtharajah. This gave inspiration for Asian Americans to develop their own hermeneutical methods and, in 1995, the "Asian and Asian American Biblical Studies Consultation" was established in the Society of Biblical Literature. [1] Figures such as Gale A. Yee, Kwok Pui-lan, Tat-siong Benny Liew, and Sze-kar Wan challenged the dominant historical critical approach to studying the Bible as being insufficient for addressing the ethical concerns of the present, especially as experienced by Asian Americans. [2] This has not led to a simple rejection of historical criticism. Instead, it has tended to "deploy historical inquiry with a decidedly ethical consciousness." [1]
Since the 2000s, in the midst of third-wave feminism, there has also been the rise of Asian American feminist biblical hermeneutics. [3] Some of the first works in the area include Gale A. Yee's Poor Banished Children of Eve: Woman as Evil in the Hebrew Bible (2003) [4] and Kwok Pui-lan's Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology (2005). [5]
There has been some challenge against Asian American biblical hermeneutics as largely being developed by mainline scholars. In 2020, Asian American Evangelicals established within the Institute for Biblical Research an "Asian-American Biblical Interpretation: Evangelical Voices" research group, hoping to pave new ground for Evangelical voices within the scholarship of Asian American biblical hermeneutics. [6]
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Christian theology:
Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible. It is part of the broader field of hermeneutics, which involves the study of principles of interpretation, both theory and methodology, for all forms of communication, nonverbal and verbal.
Biblical literalism or biblicism is a term used differently by different authors concerning biblical interpretation. It can equate to the dictionary definition of literalism: "adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense", where literal means "in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical".
The historical-grammatical method is a modern Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover the biblical authors' original intended meaning in the text. According to the historical-grammatical method, if based on an analysis of the grammatical style of a passage, it appears that the author intended to convey an account of events that actually happened, then the text should be taken as representing history; passages should only be interpreted symbolically, poetically, or allegorically if to the best of our understanding, that is what the writer intended to convey to the original audience. It is the primary method of interpretation for many conservative Protestant exegetes who reject the historical-critical method to various degrees, in contrast to the overwhelming reliance on historical-critical interpretation in biblical studies at the academic level.
Peter Eric Enns is an American Biblical scholar and theologian. He has written widely on hermeneutics, Christianity and science, historicity of the Bible, and Old Testament interpretation. Outside of his academic work Enns is a contributor to HuffPost and Patheos. He has also worked with Francis Collins' The BioLogos Foundation. His book Inspiration and Incarnation challenged conservative/mainstream Evangelical methods of biblical interpretation. His book The Evolution of Adam questions the belief that Adam was a historical figure. He also wrote The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It and The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our 'Correct' Beliefs.
In feminist theory, kyriarchy is a social system or set of connecting social systems built around domination, oppression, and submission. The word was coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza in 1992 to describe her theory of interconnected, interacting, and self-extending systems of domination and submission, in which a single individual might be oppressed in some relationships and privileged in others. It is an intersectional extension of the idea of patriarchy beyond gender. Kyriarchy encompasses sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, xenophobia, economic injustice, prison-industrial complex, colonialism, militarism, ethnocentrism, speciesism, and other forms of dominating hierarchies in which the subordination of one person or group to another is internalized and institutionalized.
Daniel Patte is a French-American biblical scholar and author. Patte is, since 2013, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, New Testament and Christianity at Vanderbilt University where he taught from 1971. He studied in both European and American schools: following his Baccalauréat in Philosophy he received a Baccalauréat en Théologie (1960) from the Faculté de Théologie Protestante, Montpellier, France, where he met his wife, Aline Teitelbaum; Licence en Théologie, from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and a Th.D. (1971) from the Jewish Christian Center at Chicago Theological Seminary. As a biblical scholar and teacher in various settings around the world, Patte calls for an ethics of biblical interpretation that involves acknowledging the contextual character of any interpretation of the Bible, as his numerous books and articles indicate. In the 1970s-1980s Patte pioneered structural criticism in biblical studies, then served two terms (1992–98) as the General Editor of Semeia, an Experimental Journal for Biblical Criticism of the Society of Biblical Literature. Patte initiated and chaired programs of the Society of Biblical Literature, including on Semiotic and Exegesis, Romans Through History and Cultures, and, since 2007, Contextual Biblical Interpretation. With colleagues of the Society of Biblical Literature and of the American Academy of Religion involved in these programs, he envisioned and edited A Global Bible Commentary (2004) and The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity (2010).
Theological hermeneutics is a field of theology, broadly referring to the application of hermeneutics, the theory and methodology of interpretation, to theological texts with theological means, particularly to scripture.
Political theology in sub-Saharan Africa deals with the relationship of theology and politics born from and/or specific to the circumstances of the region. Arising from the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and nationalist campaigns of the mid- to late twentieth century elsewhere, the increasing numbers of Christians in sub-Saharan Africa has led to an increased interest in Christian responses to the region's continuing issues of poverty, violence, and war. According to the Cameroonian theologian and sociologist Jean-Marc Éla, African Christianity "has to be formulated from the struggles of our people, from their joys, from their pains, from their hopes and from their frustrations today." African theology is heavily influenced by liberation theology, global black theology, and postcolonial theology.
Asian feminist theology is a Christian feminist theology developed to be especially relevant to women in Asia and women of Asian descent. Inspired by both liberation theology and Christian feminism, it aims to contextualize them to the conditions and experiences of women and religion in Asia.
Joerg Michael Rieger is a German professor of Christian theology whose work emphasizes economic justice and political movements. Rieger is also an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church.
Kwok Pui-lan is a Hong Kong-born feminist theologian known for her work on Asian feminist theology and postcolonial theology.
Postcolonial theology is the application of postcolonial criticism to Christian theology. As is in postcolonial discourse, the term postcolonial is used without a hyphen, denoting an intellectual reaction against the colonial, instead of being merely sequential to it.
Rasiah S. Sugirtharajah, known as R. S. Sugirtharajah, is a biblical hermeneuticist and an emeritus professor at the University of Birmingham. He is known for his work in developing the field of postcolonial biblical criticism.
Gale A. Yee is an American scholar of the Hebrew Bible. Her primary emphases are postcolonial criticism, ideological criticism, and cultural criticism. She applies feminist frameworks to biblical texts. An American of Chinese descent, she has written frequently on biblical interpretation from an Asian American perspective.
Sze-kar Wan is a Chinese-American New Testament scholar.
Mary F. Foskett is a Chinese-American New Testament scholar.
Uriah Y. Kim is a Korean-born American Old Testament scholar working as president of the Graduate Theological Union and John Dillenberger Professor of Biblical Studies.
Elsa Támez is a Mexican liberation theologian and biblical scholar. Her writings on feminist theology and contextual biblical criticisms brought new perspectives to these fields of study, laying the foundation for later scholars. Her books include Bible of the Oppressed, The Amnesty of Grace, and Struggles for Power in Early Christianity: A Study of the First Letter of Timothy (2007). She is Professor Emerita at the Universidad Biblica Latinamericana in Costa Rica. She was appointed president of Universidad Biblica Latinamericana in 1995, becoming their first woman president.
African American biblical hermeneutics or African American biblical interpretation is the study of the interpretation of the Christian Bible, informed by African American history and experiences.
