Spring 2022
Jeremy Hutton
3 credits
Fulfills Humanities, Intermediate
This course explores African and Black Diaspora interpretations of biblical literature (including both Hebrew and Greek Testaments). This course begins with a survey of Black Africans’ roles in the Bible, takes note of the early translation of the Bible into Ethiopic in the 4th–5th centuries CE, follows the movement of biblical interpretation across the Middle Passage, and explores the various intellectual dimensions of Black Diaspora biblical interpretation in contemporary North America (including various Christian, Jewish, and, to some extent, Muslim approaches). We will use this rich history of interpretation as a springboard for discussions of hermeneutics and reading strategies, of the interplay of colonialist and post-colonialist dynamics of reading, and of the variety of methods of reading scriptural texts.