African women’s biblical hermeneutics traces its origins to liberation, African and black theologies. The most significant source of African women’s biblical hermeneutics has been the circle of concerned African women theologians. African theology and the project of inculturation spearheaded by male theologians and male biblical scholars largely neglected women. Because of this, African women theologians and biblical scholars challenged the exclusively male inculturation hermeneutics. They did so by calling for a gender inclusive inculturation hermeneutics and a critical consideration of African culture and the bible. They began a search for new methods of interpreting the bible that are drawn from African culture and can empower women in their search for liberation (Dube 2002:54). Until very recently, these methodologies have not engaged with ecological concerns in the same manner as they are concerned with, for example, issues of gender and health.16 Hence, this study represents a critical engagement with ecological challenges as a concern in African biblical scholarship.
16 The circle of concerned African women theologians has established the link between women and the natural world from a theological perspective. However, the circle has not engaged with ecology from a biblical perspective as much as it has engaged with issues of class, race, gender and health. See Dube Musa W. (Ed.). 2001. Other ways of reading. African women and the Bible. Geneva: WCC publication.
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Ukpong (2000:24) argues that the concern of biblical interpretation in Africa is to have a biblical text read through a grid developed within the African socio-cultural context to engender commitment to personal and social transformation. While this claim by Ukpong (2000) is valid, African male biblical scholars have been, to some extent, reluctant to address gender issues, arguing that the concept is non-African (Maluleke 2001). Ukpong (2000) refers to biblical scholarship in Africa in general, without making clear whether that includes African women biblical scholars.
African women biblical scholars also use a tri-polar approach in their interpretation of the bible.
This involves, first, using a hermeneutics of suspicion which motivates the reader to read the biblical text with an alternative voice (Mosala 1986:196,197). Second, it uses appropriative hermeneutics that looks for the liberative elements in the text. Thus, Nadar (2001:161,162) is right that, even if the bible is patriarchal, there are texts which may empower women. Thirdly, it involves using a transformative hermeneutics that aims to bring transformation to communities who regard the bible as a sacred text.
On the basis of post-colonial feminist hermeneutics, Dube (2001) proposes a reading model that uses tools of divination to detect how social relations between colonialism, or western imperialism, and African culture have resulted in the promotion of patriarchal tendencies in Africa (Dube 2001:180,181). This methodology, as Maluleke (2001:245) observes, is derived from a deeply rooted African cultural practice. In addition, this methodology engages with social cultural issues behind the text and the African context. Women are usually victims of political ideologies and socio-cultural injustices. Dube (2001) however hardly discusses ecological issues as a concern. One would have expected a model of biblical interpretation that is deeply rooted in African culture to be more courageous and identify the link between the oppression of women and that of the natural world in Africa, largely as a result of capitalism and patriarchal Christian and western ideologies.
African biblical scholars, particularly women, are discussing emerging issues in Africa and, as Maluleke (2001:237) rightly points out, they are charting new methodologies that address contemporary issues in Africa. Given that they use sources from the African context to formulate
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their methodologies while also drawing on hermeneutical tools from elsewhere to critique patriarchy, these methodologies are poised in the right direction.
The development of new models of interpretation in Africa has been criticised by some scholars.
Maluleke (2000:94, 95) has warned that “there is no such a thing as African biblical scholarship”. In his opinion models of interpretation in Africa tend to romanticise the African context. Maluleke’s point seems to suggest that there is a standard methodology of biblical interpretation. To many, this would involve methods that are predominantly western such as historical and literary criticism. While one has to avoid being too individualistic or parochial, it is necessary to develop hermeneutical methods that draw on IKS. These should dialogue with other methods of interpretation devised by scholars from other contexts. Given the diversity of Africa from a cultural, religious and social perspective, there is in my view also a need to redefine African biblical scholarship by incorporating subjects such as ecology that seem to be perceived as peripheral. Using the same grid, but also bringing in a new paradigm, this study seeks to develop an interpretive model that draws on IKS in order to critique patriarchy.
This study is, therefore, in many ways a contribution to African biblical discourse. Using the theories developed by African women biblical scholars, it scrutinises the patriarchy of African cultures, the bible, and colonial ideologies. The study engages with the imperialism and patriarchy of historical and contemporary times, exposing their impact on women’s lives and the natural world (cf. Dube 2001:17). It explores the link between the marginalisation of women and the exploitation of non-human forms of life in Africa, particularly in the context of the Tonga people of Zambia. The thesis further seeks to propose an African indigenous interpretive model that is gender sensitive and promotes a greater awareness of human responsibility for the natural world.
In doing so, the study adopts a postcolonial17 stance and challenges the authority of the bible and of interpretive models that use a grid which is predominantly western. Maluleke (2001:242) argues that in the work produced by contemporary African biblical scholars, especially by
17Musa Dube suggests that a study that challenges the authority of the bible and western methods of reading is postcolonial in its stance (Dube 2001:17).
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African women biblical scholars, “African contexts present the raw material and sources but the explanatory strategies are seldom fashioned out of local practices, beliefs, and cultures”. To fill this gap in African biblical scholarship, the present study proposes the use of an interpretive model that draws on Tonga IKS. It is critical that an interpretive model is life-giving in the context where it is employed. The biggest struggle in the process of interpretation is not so much concerned with sacred texts themselves but rather with the hermeneutical model applied and whether it is life-giving to human as well as nonhuman forms of life (Maluleke 2001:243).
The use of indigenous sources of knowledge in biblical interpretation is not without its critics.
Phiri and Nadar (2006:5) argue that Masenya’s decision to use a Bosadi18 approach, which is a specifically African cultural hermeneutic, suggests that she is reluctant to critique aspects of African culture that oppress women. While I do not agree that any specifically African cultural hermeneutic is necessarily reluctant to critique oppressive aspects of African culture, Phiri and Nadar’s (2006) observation points to the dilemma of using indigenous African resources to critique patriarchy from within. Their observation reveals the struggle implicit in employing gender categories of interpretation in African biblical scholarship while attempting to remain true to a commitment to liberate people, particularly women in indigenous African cultures (Phiri and Nadar 2006:6).
The methodologies developed by African biblical scholars demonstrate that no single methodology is exhaustive. While Masenya’s (2001) methodology may not readily lend itself to a critique of negative elements in African culture, the Bosadi approach brings to the fore some important issues in the development of an interpretive model that is indigenous and predominantly African. Firstly, the methodology shows an awareness of the need to critique oppressive elements in African culture while retrieving the good ones (Masenya 2001:148).
Secondly, the methodology is equally aware of the need to critique the oppressive aspects of the bible while retrieving the good ones (Masenya 2001:148). Nonetheless, Masenya has not used the methodology to provide a sustained critique of some of the oppressive elements in African culture (Masenya 2001, Phiri and Nadar 2006:5).
18Mmadipoane Masenya has developed a bosadi reading of the bible. The word bosadi comes from the Sotho word mosadi which means woman. Her methodology seeks to investigate what an ideal womanhood should be for an African woman reader of the bible (Masenya 2001:148).
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Following a similar trajectory, African gendered ecological hermeneutics has four salient features or contours. It seeks firstly to expose and critique elements of the bible that have been used to support patriarchy and the marginalisation of women and nonhuman forms of life. The hermeneutic also attempts to retrieve those elements of the bible which are life-giving for humans and nonhuman forms of life. Secondly, it seeks to expose and critique elements of African indigenous culture that support the marginalisation of women and non-human forms of life while retrieving those elements that can empower women and promote human responsibility for the natural world. In the third place it investigates the interplay of colonial and postcolonial ideologies as factors that have contributed to the marginalisation of women and the exploitation of the natural world in Africa. Lastly, it attempts to retrieve and integrate the African indigenous ethic of interconnectedness (ubuntu) of all human beings (male and female) and nonhuman nature as a way of promoting human responsibility for the natural world.