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In this study, it is argued that the trust of previous (and existing) hermeneutical approaches of promoting ancient biblical texts as applicable to the everyday life of contemporary readers is not only imaginable but also too ambitious. The Hebrew Bible emerged from an Israelite cultural context, which neither speaks to nor deliberates on issues concerning the African cultural contexts. The present essay utilises a narrative approach comprising three main overtures. Firstly, some examples of previous contributions on hermeneutics will be discussed. Secondly, this study interrogates the legitimacy of employing African biblical hermeneutics that utilises ancient Jewish texts as applicable to African societies today. Thirdly and finally, the study will critically appraise for a balanced reading of the biblical text. Contribution The present study aims at engaging (debriefing) existing hermeneutical contributions towards proposing a balanced reading of the biblical text. In order to achieve that goal, the study engages into a dialogue following hermeneutical approaches, which are popular amongst most African scholars, namely African biblical hermeneutics, black biblical hermeneutics, contextual biblical hermeneutics, feminist hermeneutics and oral hermeneutics.

In establishing the Christian faith on African soil, the first missionaries to Africa came along with the Bible. They were determined to share the word of God with the indigenous Africans. This was undertaken effectively; however, it came at a cost. In an attempt to produce translated versions of the Bible for the natives, they ended up producing translations, some of which did not reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. This has called for an enterprise whereby these texts need to be retranslated and interpreted to reflect the thoughts of the indigenous people. Mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics in Ghana has been advantageous to this enterprise since it seeks to remedy the situation by examining the mother-tongue translations and making proposals for retranslations and interpretation. This has attracted some scholars to come up with a methodology and approaches that would be appropriate in this direction. This paper seeks to assess and evaluate the use of the mother-tongue interpretation, as well as its methodology and approaches in Ghana in the light of African biblical hermeneutics. Though this enterprise is recommendable to African exegetes, it is a special area of biblical studies in search of a standard methodological approach. The paper calls for much attention to how the mother-tongue interpretation could bring the meaning of the text closer to the culture of the Ghanaian reader—however, not at the expense of neglecting the cultural milieu of the original author in which the text was couched.

Death, disturbing as it can be, is an inevitable phenomenon. All cultures must find the right language to explain this reality or at least provide the linguistic tools to navigate it. Among the tools cultures employ for dealing with this phenomenon are texts, the biblical text being an example. This study, using the comparative approach of African biblical hermeneutics, examines Psalm 90 as an example of a text that is used to address the concept of death. It further argues that the ideas and strategies adopted by the biblical text are comparable to those employed by African indigenous sacred texts, such as the Owuo atwedie [the ladder of death], the Adinkra textual system.ContributionMoreover, the parallel reading of these two texts complements our understanding and facilitates our communication about a rather difficult subject in contemporary African contexts.

This article proposes an unhiding reading of the parables of Jesus, revealing the often-overlooked presence and agency of women in these narratives. Grounded in social-scientific and historical criticism, this methodology explores how first-century listeners would have imagined women as active participants in daily life, present in households, fields, roads and acts of hospitality, even when not explicitly mentioned in the text. Using four parables as case studies (the Prodigal Son, the Friend at Midnight, the Good Samaritan, and the Sower), the article argues that modern interpretations often perpetuate patriarchal silencing by failing to acknowledge these hidden women. It further connects this erasure to the ongoing crisis of gender-based violence, particularly in the South African context. By reading the parables through a lens that recognises women’s historical and theological significance, the article offers a transformative approach for biblical scholarship, churches and theological education to confront gender injustice and promote inclusive interpretation. Contribution: This article contributes to the HTS Theological Studies special collection by proposing an unhiding reading of Jesus’ parables. Rooted in social-scientific criticism, it challenges patriarchal erasures of women in biblical interpretation. This hermeneutic offers a transformative tool for theological education and faith communities to address gender-based violence (GBV) in the South African context.

Mazamisa, a dialectical thinker, argued in his article Reading from this Place (1991), that orality and textuality are complementary hermeneutical modes. This perspective disrupts the conventional binary that quarries oral traditions against written texts. Instead, a dynamic interplay is proposed where each mode amplifies the other’s interpretive potential. This article revisits Mazamisa’s perspective, investigating how oral traditions and written texts mutually enrich interpretation. Stressing the interaction between storytelling and textuality, the study aims to demonstrate the relevance of this reconciliatory hermeneutic for bridging cultural, historical, and textual divides in modern interpretation. Mazamisa’s vision emerges as a crucial tool for navigating the dynamic relationship between oral and textual traditions in the quest for discovering the meaning of the biblical text.ContributionProf. Welile Mazamisa’s concept of Dialectica Reconciliæ significantly contributes to African biblical hermeneutics by advocating for a dynamic interplay between orality and textuality. By challenging the binary opposition between oral traditions and written texts, Mazamisa promotes their complementary nature, where each mode enhances the interpretive potential of the other. These reconciliatory hermeneutic bridges the cultural and historical divides in South Africa between black and white readings, offering a more inclusive and contextual approach to biblical interpretation in African theological contexts.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) isset to revolutionise global knowledge domains and biblical hermeneutics is no exception. At face value, in Zimbabwe, AI has been stigmatised as a humanistic and profane technological system with an immense propensity to cause general religious backsliding, degeneracy, vain philosophising and secularisation of the Gospel of Christ. This article isolated Colossians 2:8 as a lens to investigate the congruency of Artificial Intelligence to the pericope’s scope of ‘philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men and rudiments of the world’. The Zimbabwean setting was used to examine whether the Colossian Christian Church’s philosophical aspersions bear any semblances to how AI is viewed among the clergy, theologians, Christian believers and academics of religious studies. The qualitative methodological paradigms of African Biblical Hermeneutics and Exegetical Method were employed in the study. The study mainly established that AI, like a tool in the hands of a workman, can either build or destroy, enhance or adulterate biblical hermeneutics depending on how it is viewed and used.ContributionThe article reflects on how the world’s most nascent technological development, Artificial Intelligence, impacts on biblical interpretation generally, but, more particularly, in the Zimbabwean context.

Every society possesses systems for accessing, preserving, and transmitting its traditions. These are meant to ensure that privileged knowledge entrusted to reliable custodians is passed on unchanged between generations for the preservation of society. In Africa, scholars have advocated new hermeneutical approaches to the study of the Bible, arguing that the adoption of traditional methods of exegesis served as another instrument in the colonialists’ toolkit to undermine the reception and preservation of Africa’s sacred traditions. Using African Biblical Hermeneutics, this paper studies the processes for preserving Sacred Tradition in Psalm 40. Similar processes are found in African Indigenous Sacred Texts such as the mate masie of the Adinkra textual system. I argue, therefore, that a complementary reading of the texts of the two traditions could serve to de-link from the monocular vision of traditional exegesis and offer a much more fruitful approach to interpreting these texts and making them relevant to the contemporary African reader.

This article is dedicated to the loving memory of Bénézet Bujo and Laurenti Magesa, two giants of African Theology. The portrait of the Jews in John’s Gospel has been the object of a great debate among Western scholars. The negative portrait of many of the Jews of the fourth canonical gospel has led some to qualify John’s Gospel as the most “anti-Jewish” writing of the New Testament. Recent Western history, in particular the Shoah, has certainly had a heavy weight on this negative interpretation of John’s Gospel. But another perspective, here African Biblical Hermeneutics, may give a different understanding of this disputed theme. Following this non-Western approach, we want to show that maybe it is not John’s Gospel’s characterization of the Jews which is problematic, but the hermeneutics used to interpret it. In the end, what is at stake, is not the Jews or Jewish people as such, but how one, Jew or non-Jew, responds to Jesus’ message and gift of abundant life.

Joel is one of the 12 minor prophets (dōdekaprophēton). His prophecy aims at calling the nation and people to repentance through emphasizing that the Day of the Lord (yōm ădȏnay) is at hand (3:1–5 [2:28–32]). The locust plague (ʾarbbeh) in Joel’s message—which recalls the insects that threaten to destroy crops and vegetation in Africa and beyond, but which can also be used as food and livestock feed and offer other benefits as well—could be interpreted as Joel’s prophetic sign that the great Day of the Lord is near (1:2–2:17). Throughout history, scholars, theologians, and exegetes of differing schools of thought and from numerous locations have offered various interpretations for Joel’s prophecy and subjected it to diverse Eurocentric and Americo-centric hermeneutical methods. This work, however, with its focus on Africa, takes a different approach. Drawing from the work of many African hermeneuticians, it reads Joel’s prophecy using the tools of African Biblical Hermeneutics (ABH), a post-colonial enterprise, in light of the decolonial turn. The article exegetes and theologically analyzes the narrative of the locust plague (ʾarbbeh) in Joel 1:2–7, within the context of Joel 1–3, with the hopes that it will be transformational and beneficial for African readers within their faith context.

This study attempts to critically re-examine certain key hermeneutical concerns of a representative group of African biblical and religious studies scholars, who ground African theological reflection on traditional African values, cultures and social realities. Most of the scholars examined are united by a focus on the past and by an attempt to interpret the present and future on the basis of it. The article critiques the backward-looking hermeneutic implicit in the work of the scholars, especially Jesse Mugambi’s backward-looking metaphor of reconstruction. It proposes a hermeneutic based on the metaphor of liberation, as employed, for example, by African women theologians or by Gerald West or Emmanuel Katongole, who focus on building the present and future on the basis of a new liberative transformative narrative and praxis that prioritises the sacredness and inviolability of human life in the context of the web of life, and in particular foregrounds the dignity of African lives, as well as all others.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implicationsThe article engages exposition and understanding of biblical texts by African scholars. Aspects of NT Christology or Ecclesiology are connected to theologies of traditional African socio-cultural realities. The relevance for an African theology of liberation and African theology of women is defended as necessitated by a new liberative transformative hermeneutic.