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Considering that the Bible was used to justify and perpetuate
African American enslavement, why would it be given such authority?
In this fascinating volume, Powery and Sadler explore how the Bible
became a source of liberation for enslaved African Americans by
analyzing its function in pre-Civil War freedom narratives. They
explain the various ways in which enslaved African Americans
interpreted the Bible and used it as a source for hope,
empowerment, and literacy. The authors show that through their own
engagement with the biblical text, enslaved African Americans found
a liberating word. The Genesis of Liberation recovers the early
history of black biblical interpretation and will help to expand
understandings of African American hermeneutics.
How did the authors of the Hebrew Bible perceive the Cushites?
Sadler demonstrates that the answer to this question provides
insights into the way differences that modern scholars would
classify as racial were understood in ancient Israel/Judah. By
examining explicit biblical references to Cush and Cushites, a
nation and people most modern scholars would deem racially black,
this book explores the manner by which the authors of the Hebrew
Bible represented the Cushite, and determines whether differences
in human phenotypes facilitated legitimating ideologies that
justified the subjugation of this foreign Other. In order to ground
this analysis, this study investigates how contemporary scholars
have understood race and ethnicity and proposes working definitions
for these contested terms. In this vein, it offers a list of
constituent elements of racial thought, which were sought in
biblical references to Cush-related terms to determine if they
govern the way biblical authors thought about the Cushites. Sadler
uses historical critical methodologies in the exegesis of biblical
passages containing references to Cush-related terms, often
producing new interpretations of these texts. Sadlers study reveals
that though there were on occasion constituent elements of
racialist thought employed in biblical representations of the
Cushites, there does not appear to have been a coherent system of
racial thought in the Hebrew Bible. Often esteemed by biblical
authors, Cushites were viewed as an ethnic group like most of the
nations mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, this study also
reveals that there was considerable contact between Cushites and
the people of Judah throughout the biblical period. It concludes by
suggesting that biblical scholars need to critically reassess their
understanding of Cushites and the role this people played in the
history of the Levant.
How did the authors of the Hebrew Bible perceive the Cushites?
Sadler demonstrates that the answer to this question provides
insights into the way differences that modern scholars would
classify as "racial" were understood in ancient Israel/Judah. By
examining explicit biblical references to Cush and Cushites, a
nation and people most modern scholars would deem racially "black,"
this book explores the manner by which the authors of the Hebrew
Bible represented the Cushite, and determines whether differences
in human phenotypes facilitated legitimating ideologies that
justified the subjugation of this foreign Other. In order to ground
this analysis, this study investigates how contemporary scholars
have understood "race" and "ethnicity" and proposes working
definitions for these contested terms. In this vein, it offers a
list of constituent elements of racial thought, which were sought
in biblical references to Cush-related terms to determine if they
govern the way biblical authors thought about the Cushites. Sadler
uses historical critical methodologies in the exegesis of biblical
passages containing references to Cush-related terms, often
producing new interpretations of these texts. Sadler's study
reveals that though there were on occasion constituent elements of
racialist thought employed in biblical representations of the
Cushites, there does not appear to have been a coherent system of
racial thought in the Hebrew Bible. Often esteemed by biblical
authors, Cushites were viewed as an ethnic group like most of the
nations mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. In fact, this study also
reveals that there was considerable contact between Cushites and
the people of Judah throughout the biblical period. It concludes by
suggesting that biblical scholars need to critically reassess their
understanding of Cushites and the role this people played in the
history of the Levant.
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