• Re-examining the Master's Tools: Considerations on Biblical Studies' Race Problem

    Author(s):
    Wei Hsien Wan (see profile)
    Editor(s):
    Katherine Hockey, David Horrell
    Date:
    2018
    Subject(s):
    Bible, Biblical interpretation, Imperialism, Race relations--Study and teaching, Ethnology--Study and teaching, Critical theory, Europe, History, Hermeneutics, Race, Ethnicity
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Audre Lorde, Race and Religion, Biblical studies, Colonialism, Critical race and ethnic studies, European history, Race/ethnicity
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6QR4NQ1H
    Abstract:
    Audre Lorde is famously known to have remarked with respect to the feminist struggle: “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house”. While recent decades have seen the rise of approaches that may genuinely be regarded as new in Biblical Studies (postcolonial, feminist, and queer readings among them), these continue for the most part to be regarded as distinct “criticisms” in their own right, operating in parallel with—and in relative isolation from—the far more dominant (and traditional) historical-critical and literary methods. Should we think of these newer approaches simply as additional tools that yield a more robust future for the discipline, or does their presence demand something more? This paper explores what it means to take seriously the origins of modern Biblical Studies in the historical and political context of Europe’s rise to colonial domination, in which “race” was a fundamental category of social knowledge. It also asks how this Eurocentrism continues to regulate developments in the discipline today. I argue that the more recent and more marginalized ways of reading biblical texts must strive for full-scale renovation of “the master’s house” (which they are ultimately incapable of dismantling), beginning with exposing—and challenging—the discipline’s situatedness in European ways of knowing. This, I suggest, is ultimately not about methodological inclusivity; it is, rather, a matter of ethical commitment to the other.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Bloomsbury T&T Clark
    Pub. Date:
    2018
    Book Title:
    Ethnicity, Race, Religion: Identities and Ideologies in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and in Modern Biblical Interpretation
    Author/Editor:
    Katherine Hockey, David Horrell
    ISBN:
    9780567677303
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All Rights Reserved

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