Department of Practical Theology and Missiology

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https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/1006

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Browsing Department of Practical Theology and Missiology by browse.metadata.advisor "Botha, Jan"

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    An African response to The postmodern Bible : is it helpful in breaking the stranglehold of idealist hermeneutics?
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 1998-12) Chimeri, Dudzirah; Botha, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Practical Theology & Missiology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of the thesis is to determine the relevance of postmodern insights as expressed in The Postmodern Bible for Africans and evaluate their significance for African biblical scholarship. The thesis argues that postmodern insights are a powerful instrument to free interpretation from its idealist captivity. My argument is that the advent of postmodernity heralded more benefits and opportunities for Africans and their churches than the supposed collateral demage. Postmodernity has created greater opportunities for Africans and other non-western peoples to resist Euro-American domination than modernity. It deconstructs the dominant EuroAmerican tradition and epistemology, thus- enables ,marginalized discourses and groups to become counter-discourses and counter-movements. The first chapter gives a treatment of the purpose and methodology of the thesis, in terms of its structured development. To understand postmodernity attention is given in the second chapter to a description of selected contours of modernity and an evaluation of the causes of its decline. Because of the decline of modernity, it is important to ascertain what alternative paradigms are emerging in its place. The third chapter presents an introduction and description of selected contours associated with postmodernity as expressed in The Postmodern Bible in order to gain some understanding in the philosophical thought patterns and worldview orientations of postmodernists. Some aspects of shona worldview as a background against which to mirror the relevance of postmodernity for Africans are featured in the -fourth chapter. Here the relationship between the shona and their ancestors is explained, as distinct from the God concept which is acknowledged by them as the origin of life. The ancestors as the living-timeless are viewed as a connection between the living and the spirit-world, as well as guardians of traditions, land and the natural environment. An evaluatory critique of postmodernity as expressed in The Postmodern Bible from an African perspective is the fulcrum of the fifth chapter. How does postmodernity formulated for a people of Euro-American cultural and social milieu become effective and relevant in an African cultural and social milieu? Faced with the need to define themselves, Africans are led to place both modernity and postmodernity in a new context and critically evaluate their relevance for them. The significance of postmodern insights for African churches and African biblical scholarship is the theme of the sixth chapter. Here my argument is that a postmodern critique of modernity can help African churches become authentic, contextuallyappropriate hermeneutical communities of the' gospel. It explores the implication of a postmodern critique of individualism, rationalism, scientific/materialistic positivism and technology for an African paradigmatic understanding of being one, holy, catholic and apostolic community of faith. The concluding chapter offers critical observations and implications of the research for African people and their churches. It identifies practical challenges which, if taken seriously, are radically life transforming.
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    Reinventing ourselves : white male biblical scholars and the responsibility towards the other
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Pérez, Garcés Juan Luis; Botha, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Practical Theology & Missiology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The problem discussed in this thesis is how to resist and subvert the complicity of biblical studies with neo-colonialism as a white male biblical scholar. Traditionally the interpretation of the bible by white male biblical scholars has not been recognised as an interested and situated practice, unlike the interpretations by readers from marginalised backgrounds. The thesis put forward here is that it is the other - understood as infinite and irreducible - that opens up the habitual vicious circle of identity formation and identifiable practices. This interruption is a moment of true decision, i.e. a moment where the self cannot follow any preestablished ethico-political programme but has to respond in a truly innovative way. This innovation is understood to be brought about in a double strategy, which juxtaposes a hegemonic practice with its binary opposition in a nondialectical way. The space in which such an interruption occurs is the interstitial borderline, the liminal space and interface between the self and its other. In the first part, the thesis critically engages with the work of three white male biblical scholars - Daniel Patte, Jeffrey Staley, and Gerald West - who try to overcome the traditional academic discourse of biblical studies by problematising the relationship between their own identities and their academic practices. In the second part, deconstruction, as shorthand for the work of Jacques Derrida, is subsequently presented as a thoroughly postcolonial critique of western ontological concepts and as a viable manner in which to theorise the critical contributions of Patte, Staley, and West. In the third and final part, three approaches within biblical studies - historicism, the bible as popular text, and literary approaches - are singled out and discussed as possible liminal spaces within which the identity of the white male biblical scholar can be reinvented in responsibility to the other.