This volume aims to explore the implications of post colonial theory, one of the most challenging and contentious critical categories of our time - for biblical texts and interpretation.

A comprehensive analysis of the New Testament from the perspective of postcolonial criticism, this title enables readers to relate biblical texts more sharply to the perennial geopolitical issues of imperialism and colonialism.

In this stimulating study, R. S. Sugirtharajah explores the implications of postcolonial criticism for biblical studies. He reveals how postcolonial criticism can offer an alternative perspective to our understanding of the Bible, and how, when the Bible has been deployed as a Western cultural icon, it has come to be questioned in new ways.

Noting that the ways of interpreting the Bible now practiced in the West are patriarchal and oppressive of those in other parts of the world, Dube offers an alternative interpretation that attends to and respects needs of women in the two-thirds world. In a provocative and insightful reading of the book of Matthew, she shows us how to read the Bible as decolonizing rather than imperialist literature.

A comprehensive history of the Bible in the Third World.

This wide-ranging Reader provides a comprehensive survey of the interaction between postcolonial criticism and biblical studies. Examines how various empires such as the Persian and Roman affected biblical narratives. Demonstrates how different biblical writers such as Paul, Matthew and Mark handled the challenges of empire. Includes examples of the practical application of postcolonial criticism to biblical texts. Considers contemporary issues such as diaspora, race, representation and territory. Editorial commentary draws out the key points to be made and creates a coherent narrative.

Exploring Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: History, Method, Practice offers a concise and multifaceted overview of the origins, development, and application of postcolonial criticism to biblical studies.? Offers a concise and accessible introduction to postcolonial biblical studies Provides a comprehensive overview of postcolonial studies by one of the field's most prominent figures Explains one of the most innovative and important developments in modern biblical studies Accessible enough to appeal to general readers interested in religion

This volume addresses the problematic relationship between colonialism and the Bible. It does so from the perspective of the Global South, calling upon voices from Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. The contributors address the present state of the problematic relationship in their respective geopolitical and geographical contexts. In so doing, they provide sharp analyses of the past, the present, and the future: historical contexts and trajectories, contemporary legacies and junctures, and future projects and strategies. Taken together, the essays provide a rich and expansive comparative framework across the globe.

This volume returns to where initial interest in postcolonial biblical criticism began: the Hebrew Bible. It does so not to celebrate the significant achievements of postcolonial analysis over the last few decades but to ask what the next step might be. In these essays, established and newer scholars, many from the interstices of global scholarship, discuss specific texts, neo/post/colonial situations, and theoretical issues. Moving from the Caribbean to Greenland, from Ezra-Nehemiah to the Gibeonites, this collection seeks out new territory, new questions, and possibly some new answers. The contributors are Roland Boer, Steed Davidson, Richard Horsley, Uriah Y. Kim, Judith McKinlay, Johnny Miles, Althea Spencer-Miller, Leo Perdue, Christina Petterson, Joerg Rieger, and Gerald West.

The essays assembled in this volume constitute a counter discourse to the existing understandings of the Bible and Christian theology. Applying postcolonial critical categories within the theological discipline, Sugirtharajah calls into question some of the established notions about the relationship between the Bible, theology and colonialism.Among the issues the volume deals with are: the status and standing of the Bible; colonial appropriation of biblical texts and postcolonial reappraisal of them; the fate of the Bible outside its natural habitat; the permeation of the ideologies of empire in Christian theology and biblical interpretation; potency and pitfalls of Third World theological discourse and the hazards of brokering texts from other cultures in Western metropolitan centres. Postcolonial Reconfigurations is a major critical intervention in the current debates surrounding the Bible and Christian theology. Written in an accessible style, it offers not only an illuminative reassessment, but also signals a significant next step for theological discourse. R.S. Sugirtharajah is Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics in the University of Birmingham. His most recent publications include The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters (2001) and Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (2002).