Bitter the Chastening Rod

Mitzi J. Smith is the J. Davison Philips Professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA. Angela N. Parker is assistant professor of New Testament and Greek at Mercer University’s McAfee School of Theology in Atlanta, GA. Ericka S. Dunbar Hill is visiting professor of Hebrew Bible at Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, OH.

This complex volume will have the reader pondering Jesus' own status as slave, wondering about daily life for those who are nameless and marginalized in the church, questioning received hermeneutical traditions, and reflecting on the legacies of Africana biblical interpreters.

• Part I. Remembering the Past, Laboring in the Present, and Shaping a Hopeful Future1.“The Hill We Climb”: Introduction ?? Mitzi J. Smith, Angela N. Parker and Ericka Dunbar Hill2.A Eulogy for Cain Hope Felder ?? Brian K. Blount3.Zoom-ing in on a Watershed Moment in Biblical Interpretation ?? William H. MyersPart II. God’s Black(ened) People in the World—Thugs, Slaves and Criminals4.God’s Only Begotten Thug ?? Allen Dwight Callahan5.Abolitionist Messiah: A Man Named Jesus Born of a Doule ?? Mitzi J. Smith6.Reading with the Enslaved: Placing Human Bondage at the Center of the Early Christian Story ?? Emerson B. Powery7.“I am a Human”: Racializing Assemblages and Criminalized Egyptianness in Acts 21:31–39 ?? Jeremy L. Williams8.The Terror of White Hermeneutics: Black and Enslaved Bodies Interpreted in the Context of Whiteness ?? Marcus W. ShieldsPart III. Africana Hermeneutical Strategies, Pedagogy, Translation, and #BLM9.Hoodoo Blues and the Formulation of Hermeneutical