Legion in a ‘Living Landscape’: Contextual Bible Study as a Disruptive Tool (Luke 8:26–39 Interpreted in Owamboland, Namibia)

John, Helen C.

doi:10.1177/0014524616676770

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

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“…These grassroots discussion groups were designed to both gather Owambo interpretations of a selection of New Testament texts and explore the complex relationship between Christianity and ATR discussed above. This approach explicitly employs ATR in the interpretation of biblical texts ( John 2017 , 2019a , 2019b ). In a setting wherein there is a pronounced sense that at least certain aspects of the ‘traditional’ are shameful, and where Christian religiosity is high and the Bible is held in very high esteem, the use of the Bible as a means to explore text and context (biblical and cultural) provided a more comfortable forum in which participants could reflect upon the particularities of their experience and interpretations.…”

Section: African Traditional Religion and Cultural Resilience In Owambomentioning

confidence: 99%

Christianization, the New Testament and COVID-19 in Owambo, Namibia

John

2021

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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This article explores religious and cultural responses to the COVID-19 crisis in Namibia, focusing particularly on the northern region of Owambo. Since the 1870s, Owambo has experienced a rapid and widespread process of Christianization. Today, the vast majority of the population (both in Owambo and in wider Namibia) identify as Christian. In this context, the supremacy of the Bible and Christianity was established, in no small part, through the instigation of cultural crisis – the upending of social norms and the demonization of African Traditional Religion (ATR) and local cultural practice. From foodstuffs to family structure, from initiation to forms of dress and adornment – the overtly ‘traditional’ became taboo. And yet, responses to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the endurance of ATR and demonstrate that the cultural ‘text’ is at least as significant as the biblical text in the current crisis, whether as sphere of impact or source of resilience. This article therefore reflects on responses to the current COVID-19 crisis in light of the historical cultural crisis, exploring how Christianity and ATR are perceived to be affected by COVID-19, and how communities are drawing on Christianity/the Bible and ATR as sources of resilience.

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Section: African Traditional Religion and Cultural Resilience In Owambomentioning

confidence: 99%

Christianization, the New Testament and COVID-19 in Owambo, Namibia

John

2021

Journal for the Study of the New Testament

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Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Biblical Interpretation

John

2024

Challenging Contextuality

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This chapter surveys three related approaches within Intercultural Biblical Interpretation, all centring around the ‘encounter’, which engages four methodological aspects: collaboration with grassroots interpreters, highlighting the influence of local context on interpretations, celebrating the potential of contextual interpretations to highlight the contextuality of the intercultural biblical interpretation scholar themselves, and, lastly, recognizing the potential for intellectual transformation and/or social change through conducting such work. Contextual Bible Study is explored as an ‘implicitly intercultural’ approach, in that it explores contextual interpretations in (naturally) heterogenous geographical contexts, as well as effecting border-crossing between academic and grassroots interpreters. The Intercultural Bible Reading project is explored as an explicitly intercultural approach, encouraging as it does interpretative conversations across cultural and geographical boundaries. Finally, this chapter introduces Cross-Cultural Biblical Interpretation Groups, which was specifically developed to analyse contextual, grassroots interpretations alongside relevant ethnographic studies and bring the doubly contextualized interpretations into conversation with professional biblical scholarship.

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Conversations in Context: Cross-Cultural (Grassroots) Biblical Interpretation Groups Challenging Western-centric (Professional) Biblical Interpretation

John

2019

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This article considers how biblical scholarship might break out of its western-dominated, largely historical-critical mould. I argue that we might challenge the hegemony of ‘western worldview’ scholarship by capitalising on the interpretative insights of alternative worldviews; in that regard, I advance a cross-cultural methodology. Additionally, I advocate engaging with grassroots interpreters, thereby contributing to the decentring of scholarly biblical criticism. Finally, this article focuses on the value of interpretation through dialogue, which functions here on two levels: the researcher dialoguing with grassroots interpretation groups in cross-cultural settings, and the resulting grassroots interpretations dialoguing with western professional biblical interpretations. The potential of this approach is demonstrated using a case study: Mark 4:35-41 interpreted with Cross-Cultural Biblical Interpretation Groups in northern Namibia. The interpretative insights of grassroots groups in non-western contexts, free(r) from the influence of western worldviews and scholarship, function to highlight the equally contextual nature of mainstream professional biblical interpretation.

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Legion in a ‘Living Landscape’: Contextual Bible Study as a Disruptive Tool (Luke 8:26–39 Interpreted in Owamboland, Namibia)

Cited by 4 publications

References 3 publications

Christianization, the New Testament and COVID-19 in Owambo, Namibia

Christianization, the New Testament and COVID-19 in Owambo, Namibia

Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Biblical Interpretation

Conversations in Context: Cross-Cultural (Grassroots) Biblical Interpretation Groups Challenging Western-centric (Professional) Biblical Interpretation

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