This book is a collection of essays that contribute to the debate on the contextual interpretation of scripture from an African context. The book engages biblical narratives from the lived experiences of Africans, insisting that meaning is attained only when people bring their daily experiences into their reading of scripture. The contributors examine the interaction of African peoples with the Bible in juxtaposition with the forces of colonialism, neocolonialism, patriarchy, war, and bad governance. This book gives voice to the lived experiences of African peoples in their quest for full expression of the profundity of their union with God by aiding them to unmask inhumanity and indignity.

This study of the word « people in the biblical context touches one of the central issues of biblical literature. The author addresses the semantic and literary-critical problems involved in interpreting the Hebrew word within the complex texts of 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings. While the word is often rendered by the English word « people and its cognates in the modern languages, it is also shown that the idea of « people, together with its semantic range in the modern usage, is not identical to the ancient Hebrew. Concerted effort is thus made to identify the basic factors and patterns that explain its meaning in various Hebrew contexts. The study explains how expresses both Israel's identity as a secular polity as well as its identity as a religious entity. The discussion is carried out in the light of a number of chosen texts, and these are analyzed both synchronically and diachronically.