R. S. Sugirtharajah – författare

The Oxford Handbook of Postcolonial Biblical Criticism is a comprehensive treatment of a relatively new form of scholarship-one of the most compelling and contested theories to emerge in recent times, and a topic that actively seeks to expand the ways in which the Bible can be studied, interpreted, and applied. Generally speaking, postcolonialism aims to critique and dismantle hegemonic worldviews and power structures, while giving voice to previously marginalized peoples and systems of thought. This approach, often varied in form, has inevitably engaged with the text and reception of the Bible, a scripture that Western colonizers introduced to-and often imposed upon-their colonial subjects. With a globally diverse list of contributors, the Handbook aims to cover the perspective and context of the authors of the Bible, as well as the modern experiences of imperialism, resistance, decolonization, and nationalism. Moreover, the volume includes both a theoretical overview and an exploration of how the field intersects with related areas, such as gender studies, race, postmodernism, and liberation theology.

In this stimulating study, R. S. Sugirtharajah explores the implications of postcolonial criticism for biblical studies. He provides a comprehensive overview of the origins, definitions, and procedures of postcolonial criticism, followed by a discussion of the significance of postcolonial criticism in biblical interpretation. He reveals how postcolonial criticism can offer an alternative perspective to our understanding of the Bible, and how, when the Bible has been deployed as a Western cultural icon, it has come to be questioned in new ways.

Contributors to this collection have been asked to re-read the book that inspired them the most at the outset of their career, or earlier, and then describe what that book offers them now, and how the book and the reader have changed - be it theologically, culturally, politically, personally or professionally - since that first inspiring read. Each chapter reads differently, the tone changing from author to author depending on their various social and political locations, their gender and ethnic differences. Contributors represent different disciplines - Systematic Theology, Biblical Studies, Cultural and English Studies. The selection also reflects male and female, centre and margin, Black and White representations. Each is a very well-established figure in their field and, more crucially, they are at the stage in their career to undertake the type of exercise envisioned in this exciting and unusual project.Autobiographical criticism is a growing tool in most academic fields and here for the first time, a group of eminent theologians ask themselves about the relationship between the reader and the book. Each scholars addresses the book's original context and the present context; their theological and hermeneutical journey; how the theological landscape has changed over the years for them; the memories these re-readings bring; their prejudices, theological likes and dislikes, and how these have shaped their theological thinking today. Contributions from dynamic thinkers from around the globe, include: Stephen Moore, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, Regina Schwartz, Fernando Segovia, Laura Donaldson, Kwok Pui-Lan, Alice Bach, Roland Boer, Archie Lee, Elsa Tamez, Christopher Rowland, Yvonne Sherwood, Sharon Ringe, Tina Pippan, Randall Bailey and more.

This innovative study moves briskly but comprehensively through three phases of the Third World's encounter with the Bible - precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. It recounts the remarkable story of how an inaccessible and marginal book in the ancient churches of India, China and North Africa became an important tool in the hands of both coloniser and colonised; how it has been reclaimed in the postcolonial world; and how it is now being reread by various indigenes, Native Americans, dalits and women. Drawing on substantial exegetical examples, Sugirtharajah examines reading practices ranging from the vernacular to liberation and the newly-emerging postcolonial criticism. His study emphasises the often overlooked biblical reflections of people such as Equiano and Ramabai as well as better-known contemporaries like Gutiérrez and Tamez. Partly historical and partly hermeneutical, the volume will serve as an invaluable introduction to the Bible in the Third World for students and interested general readers.

At a time of renewed interest in Empire, this stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between the Bible and the colonial enterprise, and examines some overlooked aspects of this relationship. These include unconventional retellings of the gospel story of Jesus by Thomas Jefferson and Raja Rammohun Roy; the fate of biblical texts when marshalled by Victorian preachers to strengthen British imperial intentions after the India uprising of 1857; the cultural-political use of the Christian Old Testament, first by the invaders to attack temple practices and rituals, then by the invaded to endorse the temple heritage scorned by missionaries; the dissident hermeneutics of James Long and William Colenso confronting and compromising with colonial ambitions; and finally the subtly seditious deployment of biblical citations in two colonial novels. This innovative book offers both practical and theoretical insights and provides compelling evidence of the continuing importance of postcolonial discourse for biblical studies.

This innovative study moves briskly but comprehensively through three phases of the Third World's encounter with the Bible - precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial. It recounts the remarkable story of how an inaccessible and marginal book in the ancient churches of India, China and North Africa became an important tool in the hands of both coloniser and colonised; how it has been reclaimed in the postcolonial world; and how it is now being reread by various indigenes, Native Americans, dalits and women. Drawing on substantial exegetical examples, Sugirtharajah examines reading practices ranging from the vernacular to liberation and the newly-emerging postcolonial criticism. His study emphasises the often overlooked biblical reflections of people such as Equiano and Ramabai as well as better-known contemporaries like Gutiérrez and Tamez. Partly historical and partly hermeneutical, the volume will serve as an invaluable introduction to the Bible in the Third World for students and interested general readers.

At a time of renewed interest in Empire, this stimulating volume explores the complex relationship between the Bible and the colonial enterprise, and examines some overlooked aspects of this relationship. These include unconventional retellings of the gospel story of Jesus by Thomas Jefferson and Raja Rammohun Roy; the fate of biblical texts when marshalled by Victorian preachers to strengthen British imperial intentions after the India uprising of 1857; the cultural-political use of the Christian Old Testament, first by the invaders to attack temple practices and rituals, then by the invaded to endorse the temple heritage scorned by missionaries; the dissident hermeneutics of James Long and William Colenso confronting and compromising with colonial ambitions; and finally the subtly seditious deployment of biblical citations in two colonial novels. This innovative book offers both practical and theoretical insights and provides compelling evidence of the continuing importance of postcolonial discourse for biblical studies.

Still at the Margins is a review of developments within biblical studies over the last fifteen years, since the publication of the groundbreaking book, Voices from the Margins (1995, ed. Sugirtharajah). Bringing together disparate marginal voices in one volume for the first time, Still at the Margins represents an important new piece of collaborative scholarship. There have been volumes which have looked at specific marginal voices, such as black or feminist biblical hermeneutics, but there has been no single volume which aims to address all the marginal voices. More importantly, Still at the Margins is written by the very experts who shaped the field and presents them with an opportunity to reflect on and try to move the agenda to the next stage.

This celebratory volume in honour of Frances Young, draws on and develops the multifarious hermeneutical interests evident in the body of her work. Its overall thematic motif, to highlight concerns which impacted on her work, is the symbolic use of 'wilderness.' This multi-disciplinary volume begins with an in-depth analysis of her work by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The first part of the volume has biblical and early Christian literature as the focus, and deals with, among other topics, Jesus' encounter with people of impairment, biblical figures such as Miriam, gospel portrayals of mountains, experience of wilderness in the lives of Maori and Jewish people, the temptation of Jesus as interpreted at different times, and the redefinition of asceticism in Syrian Christianity. The second part of the volume addresses theological concerns, with essays which advocate wisdom as a potential mode for doing theology, engage with the radical Christian writings of 17th and 18th centuries, revisit the problem of sin, highlight the latent Christological motifs in the novels of Tolkien, and draw attention to the significance of the Quranic Jesus.One of the powerful messages of these lucidly written essays is the interconnectedness of the Bible, patristic writing, systematic theology and spirituality. The contributors come from different theological, disciplinary, social and gender backgrounds but there are important convergences which impact on current theological discourse. These essays reflect Frances Young's twin concerns, academic and pastoral, and will be attractive to both lay and professional readers.

Since its emergence a few years ago, postcolonial biblical criticism has witnessed swift expansion and development in Biblical Studies.  This critical approach has been increasingly applied to biblical texts as well as modern and postmodern interpretations and interpreters of these texts, yielding an ever-growing body of dissertations, scholarly articles, and volumes.  In the process, this approach has become increasingly sophisticated as well in matters of method and theory.  This Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings represents a critical benchmark in postcolonial biblical criticism. Indeed, the Commentary stands as the most comprehensive application to date of postcolonial criticism to the biblical texts, with its focus on the entire corpus of the New Testament.  It places the reality and ramifications of imperial-colonial frameworks and relations at the centre of biblical criticism.  The various entries pursue their analysis across a broad range of concerns and through a number of different approaches.  They show, among other things, how texts and interpretations construct and/or relate to their respective imperial-colonial contexts; foreground literary, rhetorical, and ideological marks of coloniality and postcoloniality in both texts and interpretations; reveal how postcolonial reading strategies disrupt and destabilize hegemonic biblical criticism; and engage in critical dialogue with the visions and projects identified in texts as well as in interpretations.  Toward this end, the Commentary has recourse to a highly distinguished and diversified roster of scholars, making this a definite point of reference for years to come.

On the bicentenary of the publication of Raja Rammohun Roy’s Precepts of Jesus, R. S. Sugirtharajah situates Roy’s compilation of the moral teachings of Jesus in its social, cultural and political context and analyses the hermeneutical issues it generated. In doing so, he documents the often acrimonious exegetical exchanges between Roy and the missionaries over the standing and status of the Bible; their often differing hermeneutical suppositions and strategies; their contradictory consturals of Jesus; and disputes about translations. Sugirtharajah addresses issues such as the place of the Precepts among earlier Gospel Harmonies, Roy’s use of the Improved Version, a highly contentious Unitarian Bible, and his motives for translating his own Hindu texts. Sugirtharajah also demonstrates how Roy’s work was a precursor to de-mythologization which the West took up later, and how Roy’s identification of Jesus as an Asiatic, and his idea of a moral union between Father and Son, were routinely reused by later Indian writers. An additional feature is a critical look at Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which appeared in the same year and which had a similar interpretative aim and aspiration. This volume also includes Roy’s Precepts in full. There have been popular perceptions of Roy as someone who strongly disapproved of various Christian doctrines and was highly rationalistic in his outlook. Sugirtharajah demonstrates that Roy was much more complex in his writings. His initial rationalistic energy and passion, displayed in his Precepts, gave way to something much more intuitively and emotionally based which, ironically, did not disturb the foundations of Christianity but made them stronger and safer for Christians. Sugirtharajah brings to the fore a forgotten but significant work which raised important issues for biblical studies and the power relations between colonized and colonizer over the control of texts and interpretation. He draws lessons from this 19th-century colonial religious controversy for a postcolonial world where religious texts are manipulated to provoke religious hatred and violence.

On the bicentenary of the publication of Raja Rammohun Roy’s Precepts of Jesus, R. S. Sugirtharajah situates Roy’s compilation of the moral teachings of Jesus in its social, cultural and political context and analyses the hermeneutical issues it generated. In doing so, he documents the often acrimonious exegetical exchanges between Roy and the missionaries over the standing and status of the Bible; their often differing hermeneutical suppositions and strategies; their contradictory consturals of Jesus; and disputes about translations. Sugirtharajah addresses issues such as the place of the Precepts among earlier Gospel Harmonies, Roy’s use of the Improved Version, a highly contentious Unitarian Bible, and his motives for translating his own Hindu texts. Sugirtharajah also demonstrates how Roy’s work was a precursor to de-mythologization which the West took up later, and how Roy’s identification of Jesus as an Asiatic, and his idea of a moral union between Father and Son, were routinely reused by later Indian writers. An additional feature is a critical look at Thomas Jefferson’s The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, which appeared in the same year and which had a similar interpretative aim and aspiration. This volume also includes Roy’s Precepts in full. There have been popular perceptions of Roy as someone who strongly disapproved of various Christian doctrines and was highly rationalistic in his outlook. Sugirtharajah demonstrates that Roy was much more complex in his writings. His initial rationalistic energy and passion, displayed in his Precepts, gave way to something much more intuitively and emotionally based which, ironically, did not disturb the foundations of Christianity but made them stronger and safer for Christians. Sugirtharajah brings to the fore a forgotten but significant work which raised important issues for biblical studies and the power relations between colonized and colonizer over the control of texts and interpretation. He draws lessons from this 19th-century colonial religious controversy for a postcolonial world where religious texts are manipulated to provoke religious hatred and violence.

R.S. Sugirtharajah shows how at the height of European colonialism whilst the colonizers were studying the sacred texts of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Zoroastrians, the Hindus were themselves scrutinizing the invader’s book – the Christian Bible. Sugirtharajah examines how these Hindus transformed the Bible into what they deemed fit for and suited to their contexts. The result was that the Bible acquired a totally different form and lost its authority as the Book of the Empire. Sugirtharajah shows how the resistant, subversive and at times antagonistic readings of the Hindus went beyond what the colonizer had intended. Sadly what these Hindus made of the Bible went largely unnoticed and was ignored by Western scholarship.This volume seeks to rectify this regrettable omission and to place both the Hindu reformers and nationalists attitude to the Bible in their own specific context and to allow them to speak on their own terms rather than reading them with Christian preconception. The Hindu reformers covered include figures such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Arumuga Navalar, Keshub Chunder Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Ponnambalam Ramanathan, M. K. Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and nationalists such as Dhirendranath Chowdhary, Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup. The book contains the interpretative context; the textual negotiation that went on between these Hindus and the missionaries and orientalists; examples of their Hinduization of the Bible; and the hermeneutical impact on mainstream biblical interpretation.

R.S. Sugirtharajah shows how at the height of European colonialism whilst the colonizers were studying the sacred texts of Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs and Zoroastrians, the Hindus were themselves scrutinizing the invader’s book – the Christian Bible. Sugirtharajah examines how these Hindus transformed the Bible into what they deemed fit for and suited to their contexts. The result was that the Bible acquired a totally different form and lost its authority as the Book of the Empire. Sugirtharajah shows how the resistant, subversive and at times antagonistic readings of the Hindus went beyond what the colonizer had intended. Sadly what these Hindus made of the Bible went largely unnoticed and was ignored by Western scholarship.This volume seeks to rectify this regrettable omission and to place both the Hindu reformers and nationalists attitude to the Bible in their own specific context and to allow them to speak on their own terms rather than reading them with Christian preconception. The Hindu reformers covered include figures such as Raja Rammohun Roy, Arumuga Navalar, Keshub Chunder Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Ponnambalam Ramanathan, M. K. Gandhi and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and nationalists such as Dhirendranath Chowdhary, Sita Ram Goel and Ram Swarup. The book contains the interpretative context; the textual negotiation that went on between these Hindus and the missionaries and orientalists; examples of their Hinduization of the Bible; and the hermeneutical impact on mainstream biblical interpretation.

Though the Bible is a product of West Asia, its influence on Europe and the Americas has received far more attention than its complex career in the East. R. S. Sugirtharajah corrects this imbalance with an expansive new study of Asia's subversive and idiosyncratic relationship with the Bible. This is the story of missionaries, imperialists, exegetes, reformers, and nationalists who molded Biblical texts according to their own needs in order to influence religion, politics, and daily life from India to China.When the Bible reached east and south Asia in the third century CE, its Christian scriptures already bore traces of Asian commodities and Indian moral stories. In China, the Bible merged with the teachings of Buddha and Lao Tzu to produce the Jesus Sutras. As he recounts the history of how Christianity was influenced by other Asian religions, Sugirtharajah deftly highlights the controversial issue of Buddhist and Vedic influence on Biblical religion.Once used to justify European rule in Asia, the Bible has also served to promote the spiritual salvation of women, outcasts, and untouchables. The Bible has left a literary mark on Asia in two ways: through its influence on Asian writers and through the reinvigoration of modern Asian vernaculars when proselytizing missionaries introduced Western print culture to the East.

Reconstructions of Jesus occurred in Asia long before the Western search for the historical Jesus began in earnest. This enterprise sprang up in seventh-century China and seventeenth-century India, encouraged by the patronage and openness of the Chinese and Indian imperial courts. While the Western quest was largely a Protestant preoccupation, in Asia the search was marked by its diversity: participants included Hindus, Jains, Muslims, Catholics, and members of the Church of the East.During the age of European colonialism, Jesus was first seen by many Asians as a tribal god of the farangis, or white Europeans. But as his story circulated, Asians remade Jesus, at times appreciatively and at other times critically. R. S. Sugirtharajah demonstrates how Buddhist and Taoist thought, combined with Christian insights, led to the creation of the Chinese Jesus Sutras of late antiquity, and explains the importance of a biography of Jesus composed in the sixteenth-century court of the Mughal emperor Akbar. He also brings to the fore the reconstructions of Jesus during the Chinese Taiping revolution, the Korean Minjung uprising, and the Indian and Sri Lankan anti-colonial movements.In Jesus in Asia, Sugirtharajah situates the historical Jesus beyond the narrow confines of the West and offers an eye-opening new chapter in the story of global Christianity.

This wide-ranging Reader provides a comprehensive survey of the interaction between postcolonial criticism and biblical studies. Examines how various empires such as the Persian and Roman affected biblical narratives. Demonstrates how different biblical writers such as Paul, Matthew and Mark handled the challenges of empire. Includes examples of the practical application of postcolonial criticism to biblical texts. Considers contemporary issues such as diaspora, race, representation and territory. Editorial commentary draws out the key points to be made and creates a coherent narrative.

This wide-ranging Reader provides a comprehensive survey of the interaction between postcolonial criticism and biblical studies. Examines how various empires such as the Persian and Roman affected biblical narratives. Demonstrates how different biblical writers such as Paul, Matthew and Mark handled the challenges of empire. Includes examples of the practical application of postcolonial criticism to biblical texts. Considers contemporary issues such as diaspora, race, representation and territory. Editorial commentary draws out the key points to be made and creates a coherent narrative.

Exploring Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: History, Method, Practice offers a concise and multifaceted overview of the origins, development, and application of postcolonial criticism to biblical studies.? Offers a concise and accessible introduction to postcolonial biblical studiesProvides a comprehensive overview of postcolonial studies by one of the field's most prominent figuresExplains one of the most innovative and important developments in modern biblical studiesAccessible enough to appeal to general readers interested in religion

Exploring Postcolonial Biblical Criticism: History, Method, Practice offers a concise and multifaceted overview of the origins, development, and application of postcolonial criticism to biblical studies.? Offers a concise and accessible introduction to postcolonial biblical studiesProvides a comprehensive overview of postcolonial studies by one of the field's most prominent figuresExplains one of the most innovative and important developments in modern biblical studiesAccessible enough to appeal to general readers interested in religion

Postcolonial theory is one of the most challenging and, at the same time, contentious critical categories that have emerged in our time. Yet it offers great promise for opening up a whole new way of interpreting the Bible and interrogating colonial assumptions embedded in biblical interpretation. This engaging collection of essays explores the implications of postcolonial theory for biblical studies, and includes a number of textual reworkings. A truly international volume, it ranges from Sri Lanka to Botswana, Australia to the USA, and reflects postcolonial concerns from, for example, African-American, Hispanic-American, Feminist and Aboriginal perspectives. Besides the editor, contributors include Richard Horsley, Sharon Ringe, Randall Bailey, Kwok Pui-Lan, Fernando Segovia, Roland Boer, Musa Dube Shomanah and Bas Wielenga.

What this collection aims to do is to make visible the spectacular ways in which the vernacular has been incorporated into current interpretative practices. It contains practical appropriations of biblical narratives, informed by the vernacular heritage and by the reader's own identity, and spells out the theoretical aim and ambit of such an enterprise. More importantly, it tries to place vernacular reading among the ongoing critical movements of our time, such as postmodernism and postcolonialism. Though the collection celebrates the arrival of the vernacular, it is also aware of the dangers of inventing an 'idealized indigene' and of partaking in mythmaking. In addition to the editor, the contributors include Laura Donaldson, Gerald West, Thomas Thangaraj, David Adamo, Dalila Naya-Pot and George Mulrain.

The volume contributes a postcolonial perspective to such topics as textual production, commentarial writings and translations in colonial times, and then moves on to inspect Eurocentric notions embedded in current western biblical interpretation especially in projects such as "Jesus Research." It also contains an overview of and introduction to one of the most challenging and controversial theories of our time, postcolonialism--a theory that gives mediation and representation to Third World people. Though long established in cultural studies, postcolonial theory has not previously been seriously applied to Asian biblical interpretation.