Reading the Bible Around the World: A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics

EMQ » April – June 2024 » Volume 60 Issue 2

Reviewed by Nathaniel (Than) Veltman who currently serves as mission scholar in missiology and community development with United World mission’s theological education initiative at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

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Is there one way of interpreting Scripture? In Reading the Bible Around the World: A Student’s Guide to Global Hermeneutics the authors present a contextual/global approach to interpreting Scripture in which readers are invited, “regardless of specialized academic skills, to peer into biblical stories for themselves” (11). Through this approach, the authors argue for an openness to interpreting Scripture that allows for a “broad spectrum of interpretative possibility” rather than a definitive singular meaning. As such, this book offers readers not a methodological treatise but rather an accessible guide for understanding and engaging different approaches to Scriptural interpretation around the world.

After outlining the aims, scope, and importance of the book, chapter 1 covers Latin American approaches to reading Scripture are presented. Then in chapter 2, special attention is given to the impact of migration and liberation theology. Frederico Alfredo Roth offers insights into how the social contexts of oppression and poverty impact Latin American hermeneutics. In chapter 3, Alice Yafeh-Deigh presents an Afro-Cameroonian reading of Scripture, highlighting the colonial and post-colonial realities of the African context.

Euro-American interpretative approaches are outlined by Justin Marc Smith in chapter 4, demonstrating some of the challenges of these approaches for interpretation today. Chapter 5 focuses on Asian/Asian-American interpretation of Scripture; Kirsten Sonkyo Oh illuminates the influence of Confucian philosophy and its relevance to understanding the social location of Asian and Asian-American Bible readers.

Moving beyond geographic categories, Kay Higuera Smith examines Biblical interpretation in light of contemporary realities of globalization, migration, and diaspora in chapter 6. Smith points to the need for a language that reflects the complexities of shared global categories. Altogether, common threads of self-awareness, other-awareness, and dialogue emerge (145). Each chapter models scriptural interpretation from unique vantage points by focusing on the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) and Old Testament passages.

This book makes an important contribution to advancing and expanding engagement with various hermeneutical approaches to Scripture. By arguing that “all interpretations, provided they undertake a reasoned engagement with the text, exist to complement one another” (140), the authors advocate for greater awareness of potential hermeneutical blind spots and humble openness to alternative interpretations. Such a contextual/global approach provides a more holistic understanding that each perspective cannot achieve on its own.

Seminary students, pastors, lay church leaders, and missionaries will all benefit from this book. As a guide, it presents a starting point for further conversations. Each chapter includes helpful questions for reflection and further engagement. The models and examples provided inspire further study of Bible passages in various contexts, encouraging a collaborative approach to reading Scripture in a community with those different from ourselves.

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For Further Reading

Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes by Robert McAfee Brown (Westminster John Knox Press, 1984).

Reading the Bible from the Margins by Miguel De La Torre (Orbis Books, 2002).

Decolonizing Biblical Studies: A View from the Margins by Fernando F. Segovia (Orbis Books, 2000).

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EMQ, Volume 60, Issue 2. Copyright © 2024 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.