The Bible and the Third World: Precolonial, Colonial and Postcolonial Encounters

by R.S. Sugirtharajah

This volume is the first attempt at a comprehensive history of how the Bible has fared in the Third World, from precolonial days to the postcolonial period. It closely examines the works of biblical interpreters from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and North America, bringing to the fore the obscure as well as the better-known interpretations, and investigating the Bible's reclamation by indigenous peoples in the postcolonial world. The volume will be an invaluable guide to anyone interested in learning about the impact of the Bible on non-Western cultures.

Genres: Religion, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published June 13, 1997

About the author

R.S. Sugirtharajah, a Sri Lankan theologian and lecturer, is Professor of Biblical Hermeneutics at the University of Birmingham, England. Prior to his current appointment, he was Senior Lecturer in Third World Theologies at Selly Oak Colleges, Birmingham.

Reviews

[Drew Golden · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two stars are for how much historical primary source content there was. But sadly that is not what defines the book.

The author has two many underlying assumptions that he fails to make a compelling case for that really make the book an unconvincing read for me. The basic line goes… the historical critical method has proven the bible to be full of flaws, errors, and contradictions meaning that any sort of interpretative framework that maintains historical orthodoxy is only due to power structures and colonialism.

This leads to the author spending most of the book dunking on Protestant attempts to make the bible accessible in the vernacular, and celebrating every story of extreme syncretism he can find.

He claims post-colonial studies as a framework and even directly quotes Edward Said’s work on the Orient and the Occident throughout the book. But what was a framework for Said to re-align academic and political thought with careful nuance in Orientalism, has been turned into a blunt force moral framework here.

[Elliot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have been really busy the last few months with work and haven't been able to read books as much as I want to. This has been the first book I've really had the time to read from start to finish. It's a phenomenal look at the foundational role the the Bible played in the colonial project within the Third World. Some of the better parts of the book are Sugirtharajah's argument that the Bible remained largely marginal to precolonial Christian communities in India, Africa, and China, his analysis of the way the British and Foreign Bible Society explicitly distributed the Bible as a means of colonial civilization making, and his constructive postcolonial hermeneutics. I find Sugirtharajah's constructive project both persuasive and helpful as someone who has largely considered themselves post-Christian for a few years now. To quote him at length:

Postcolonialism, on the other hand (compared to Liberation hermeneutics), sees the Bible as both problem and solution, and its message of liberation is seen as far more indeterminate and complicated. It is seen as a text of both emancipation and enervation. Postcolonial reading advocates the emancipation of the Bible from its implication in dominant ideologies both at the level of the text and at the level of interpretation. For postcolonialism, the critical principle is not derived only from the Bible but is determined by contextual needs and other warrants. It sees the Bible as one among many liberating texts.

All in all a great read for anyone looking to understand the Bible's colonial entanglement and a constructive path forward.

[Patricia]

Thought-provoking for sure.