Before Harriet Tubman or Martin Luther King was identified with Moses, African Americans identified those who challenged racial oppression in America with Samson. In Black Samson: The Untold Story of an American Icon, Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper tell the story of how this biblical character became an icon of African American literature. Along the way, Schipper and Junior introduce readers to a cast of historical characters-many of whom became American icons themselves-including Fredrick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton and others. From stories of slave rebellions to the Harlem Renaissance to the civil rights era and the Black Power movement, invoking the biblical character of Samson became a powerful way for African American intellectuals, activists, and artists to voice strategies and opinions about race relations in America. As this provocative book reveals, the story of Black Samson became the story of our nation's contested racial history.

Reimagining Hagar illustrates that while interpretations of Hagar as Black are not frequent within the entire history of her interpretation, such interpretations are part of strategies to emphasize elements of Hagar's story in order to associate or disassociate her from particular groups. It considers how interpreters engage markers of difference, including gender, ethnicity, status and their intersections in their portrayals of Hagar. Nyasha Junior offers a reception history that examines interpretations of Hagar with a focus on interpretations of Hagar as a Black woman. Reception history within biblical studies considers the use, impact, and influence of biblical texts and looks at a necessarily small number of points within the long history of the transmission of biblical texts. This volume covers a limited selection of interpretations over time that is not intended to be a representative sample of interpretations of Hagar. It is beyond the scope of this book to offer a comprehensive collection of interpretations of Hagar throughout the history of biblical interpretation or in popular culture. Junior argues for the African presence in biblical texts; identifies and responds to White supremacist interpretations; offers cultural-historical interpretation that attends to the history of biblical interpretation within Black communities; and provides ideological criticism that uses the African-American context as a reading strategy. Reimagining Hagar offers a history of interpretation, but also expands beyond interpretation among Black communities to consider how various interpreters have identified Hagar as Black.

An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation provides a much-needed introduction to womanist approaches to biblical interpretation. It argues that womanist biblical interpretation is not simply a byproduct of feminist biblical interpretation but part of a distinctive tradition of African American women's engagement with biblical texts. While womanist biblical interpretation is relatively new in the development of academic biblical studies, African American women are not newcomers to biblical interpretation. Written in an accessible style, this volume highlights the importance of both the Bible and race in the development of feminism and the emergence of womanism. It provides a history of feminist biblical interpretation and discusses the current state of womanist biblical interpretation as well as critical issues related to its development and future. Although some African American women identify themselves as "womanists," the term, its usage, its features, and its connection to feminism remain widely misunderstood. This excellent textbook is perfect for helping to introduce readers to the development and applications of womanist biblical interpretation.