How does Mosala describe ideology? He sees ideology thus:
It is rather a harmonization of contradictions in such a way that the class interests of one group are universalized and made acceptable to other classes (Mosala, 1989: 118-9).
Mosala goes on to argue that making scientific sense of the ideological condition of a text means
knowing the text in a way in which it is incapable of knowing itself. In this regard Eagleton argues that,
The task of criticism, then, is not to situate itself within the same space as the text, allowing it to speak or completing what it necessarily leaves unsaid. On the contrary, its function is to install itself in the very incompleteness of the work in order to theorise it-to explain the ideological necessity of those "not-saids" which constitute the very principle of its identity.
Its objects is the unconsciousness of the work-that of which is not, and cannot be, aware (Quoted by Mosala,1989:119).
Moreover, Mosala critiques both the historical-critical method, the social scientific method and black theology'S uncritical exegetical starting point, which expresses itself in the notion that the Bible is the revealed "word of God" (Mosala,1989:6). Accordingly, Mosala argues that the notion of the Bible as "the revealed Word of God" leads to a false notion of the Bible as nonideological. He maintains that such a notion can cause political paralysis in the oppressed people who read it:
An approach to the study or appropriation ofthe Bible that begins with the theological notion of the Bible as the Word of God, therefore, presupposes a hermeneutical epistemology for which truth is not historical, cultural, or economic. For such an epistemology the Word of God is pre-established. The political, cultural, economic, or historical relevance of this Word of God comes out of its capacity to be applied to the various facets of human life, and in this case of black human life. Its relevance does not issue out of its very character as a historical, cultural, political, or economic product (Mosala, 1989: 19-20).
Mosala argues that the historical-critical method, the social scientific method, and black theology, have failed to recognize the ideological character in the texts. These methods have not been able to sufficiently address issues of ideology, race, gender, class, and politics in their application to the Bible (Mosala,1989:7).
Thus, Mosala proposes a new exegetical starting point, since "The social, cultural, political, and economic world of the black working class and peasantry constitutes the only valid hermeneutical starting point for a black theology of liberation" (Mosala, 1986: 181; 1989:21). He bases his hermeneutics on the key concept of struggle:
I ar~ue that the category of struggle provides the lens for reading the text in a liberating fashIOn as well as the codes for unlocking the possibilities and limitation of the biblical texts (Mosala, 1989:8).
So Mosala sees the category of "the black struggle, from precolonial times to the present, as
representing an important hermeneutical factor" (Mosala,1989:123).
I propose that, in this appropriation of black history and culture for purposes of appropriating biblical texts, the category of struggle will serve as a critical grid (Mosa1a, 1989: 12).
The category of struggle becomes an important hermeneutical factor not only in one's reading of his or her history and culture but also in one's understanding of the history, nature, ideology, and agenda of the biblical texts (Mosala,1989:9).
Consequently, a biblical hermeneutics ofliberation, using the same tool of struggle as was used to interrogate the readers' history, culture, and ideology, must now address the question of the material conditions that constitute the sites of the struggles that produced the biblical texts (Mosala,1989:9).
The above analysis of Mosala does not mean that he rejects totally the biblical text. He gives the reason for his appropriation of the biblical tradition in another article in which he identifies two sources of black theology as "the biblical and the African roots" (Mosala, 1986: 119;
Burden, 1993 :222).
However we must, Mosala argues, employ a socio-historical materialist method of interpretation to identify the ideology of the text. Explaining his materialistic reading of the Bible, he further argues I used a materialist method to delineate the struggles inherent in black history and culture;
I will use a similar method to connect us with the struggles behind and in the text ofthe Bible (Mosala, 1989: 103).
In order to unearth the ideology of the text, Mosala believes that the exegete must identify the social, cultural, class, gender and racial issues that are at work in the biblical text:
What historical point is reflected by the discursive practice this text represents? What are the social, cultural, class, gender, and racial issues at work in this text? What is the ideological- spiritual agenda of the text, that is, how does the text itself seek to be understood?
(Mosala,1989:34-5).
Mosa1a sees a two-way dialogue between black history and the Bible:
Thus black culture and history as hermeneutical factors in black theology in South Africa ask questions of the biblical text that seek to establish ties with struggles for liberation in the biblical communities. Similarly, the liberating aspects ofthe biblical discourses interrogate black culture and history in the light of the values and goals of struggling classes in biblical communities (Mosa1a, 1989: 152)
Therefore, the task of biblical hermeneutics of liberation is as follows
,
link up with kindred struggles. The task now facing a black theology ofliberation is to enable black people to use the Bible to get the land back and to get the land back without losing the Bible. In order for this to happen, black theology must employ the progressive aspects of black history and culture to liberate the Bible so that the Bible may liberate black people.
That is the hermeneutical dialectic (Mosala,1989: 153).
Gerald West has provided a summary ofMosala's methodology:
Mosala articulates a clear methodology which underlies his mode of reading. His interpretive procedures are clear. His initial procedure as far as the text is concerned is to use historical- critical methods to determine the text and its context. For Mosala the important consequence of applying these methods is that they place the text in its socio-historical setting ... With the identification of this setting Mosala then moves into a historical-materialist analysis of the text (West, 1995 :72).
Mosala's work is important, in that it helps us to see that the biblical text is ideological. This is also our view with reference to Ezra-Nehemiah. We have shown earlier that the Ezra-Nehemiah text has a particular ideological bias in favour of the returned exiles, but against the am haaretz. The observation by Mosala, that the biblical text is not neutral, but has a particular ideology, is something Villa-Vicencio, Mugambi and Karamaga have failed to identify and have not seriously taken into consideration when setting forth a theology of reconstruction based on Ezra-Nehemiah.
Furthermore, Mosala's hermeneutic, like the hermeneutic proposed by our study of the text of Ezra- Nehemiah, is African, in that it takes seriously the African experience (culture, history etc) of colonial exploitation and the role of capitalism in our context.