The Vocation of an African biblical scholar on the margins of biblical scholarship

Abstract

African biblical scholarship has achieved a substantial self-consciousness consciousness as a discipline on the African continent, and yet there has been little explicit reflection on the vocation of the African biblical scholar. This article situates itself among the many currents that might be said to characterise African biblical scholarship, examining how each of these currents makes particular demands on the African biblical scholar. Adopting a somewhat autobiographical stance, but risking also generalisations, the article reflects on the vocation of an African biblical scholar. Recognising the particular socio-historical contexts of South African biblical scholarship, the article begins with the story of a white male English-speaking South African biblical scholar situating himself within the broader South African and African scholarly terrain. From this specific social location, the article broadens out to examine the theoretical frames that shape the vocation of the African biblical scholar, to interrogate the accountability the African biblical scholar has to his / her local community and the responsibility she / he has towards the discipline of biblical studies, to analyse the relationship between criticality and faith, and to reflect on how all of this impacts on the pedagogy of the African biblical scholar.

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