Bible Interpretation and the African Culture

Gospel Reception Among the Pökot People of Kenya

David J. Ndegwah

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781532611414, 9781532611438
• eBook ISBN: 9781532611421
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This book can be summarized in one sentence: that culture plays a determinant role in the way people perceive, interpret, and, therefore, respond to reality around them--ideas, events, people, and literature, including sacred literature. Thus, when people encounter new reality they perceive and conceptualize it in accordance with their worldview, which is shaped by their culture that is modeled to suit various geographical locations. In order to understand why people around the world behave and act as they do--they choose certain words in what they say and do certain things rather than others--it is important to understand and appreciate this fact. Failure to do so would make it very difficult to engage in any dealings with them, secular or religious, like doing business or evangelization. This is what happened to the Pokot people whose worldview is predominantly communitarian, and yet they were introduced to hermeneutics that are predominantly individualistic, which is at loggerheads with their communal aspirations. The manifestation of this reality is the interpretation of the Good Shepherd parable in the Gospel of John, which the Pokot have understood and contextualized in line with their worldview, against the intentions, goals, and disposition of their evangelizers.

CHAPTER 4

THE PÖKOT UNDERSTANDING
OF JOHN 10:1–16

Introduction

As explained earlier in the general introduction this chapter, and the next one, consist of an analysis of the field data gathered in a period of six months, between March and August 2002. Spradley distinguishes three sources of information: cultural behavior, artefact and language.619 This distinction, as we have already said, acted as the organizing principle in this analysis, while Kwalitan was a tool for efficiency and accuracy in analyzing the field data. We treated the three sources of information as the fundamental aspects of the Pökot social experience and, there-ore, observed how they related to the religious experience of the people.620

Earlier on in chapters one, we identified culture as something shared, though not evenly, and argued that these shared elements constitute a whole range of cultural orientations that are found in people’s social dealings among themselves and with others. In this light, we observed what the Pökot people and their pastors do (cultural behavior), the things they make and use (cultural artefacts) and we listened to what they said (speech messages).

The latter was mainly, but not only, done within the context of SCCs, whereby (81) members held bible sharing sessions and discussed the text of John 10:1–16 within the West Pökot County. We also recorded interviews, proverbs and Sunday sermons by the pastors. Whereas the informants for the next chapter (4) consisted of the pastors (10 priests and 19 catechists), for this chapter they consisted of ‘ordinary’ Christians of all ages, both sexes and different classifications in life. There were elderly people, most of whom do not know how to read and write, middle aged people, some of whom have had limited education, mainly to the primary school level. Then there were young adults, who have mostly finished high school and have had at least two years of training in tertiary institutions.

We presented the above text and listened to their spontaneous sharing, which was later followed by interviews for the purpose of clarification or additional information. The length and nature of the interviews differed from one informant to another, depending on what was lacking in his or her earlier contribution in the SCC. We, therefore, became students of the local people—churchgoers, farmers and shepherds, who acted as able teachers in our effort to discover ‘the insider’s view’,621 of the Pökot community.

The aims of doing this were two: firstly, to find out whether and, if yes, to what extent the Pökot meaning system is a communitarian one. Secondly, to find out whether, and if yes, to what extent the Pökot use their meaning system to interpret the above-mentioned bible text. This was to be determined by the way and the extent to which the people referred to their cultural imagery during their sharing of the text in question. We did not, in this chapter, intend to engage ourselves in the exegetical-hermeneutical debate, but simply ‘to get the native’s point of view’622 on bible interpretation.

This was meant to help us determine if the people in the place of our research have managed to make the Bible their own, by integrating its teaching with their culture. This, we did with the help of insights from Spradley’s social research method, through which we analyzed the three aspects of the Pökot cultural pattern as mentioned above. In these three sources of information, we were looking for the elements of communitarianism, in the Pökot culture, through the analysis of the verbal sources, material sources and behavioral sources. Then, as a control measure to our findings, we also looked for the elements of individualism, again through the analysis of the verbal sources, material sources and behavioral sources.

As we have already said in chapter one, the objective of our field investigations was to find out the condition(s) through which biblical hermeneutics can be used as an effective tool for the inculturation of the Gospel among the people of West Pökot. We formulated six questions that remained in our minds during all our field research activities, as follows:

1. What is the Pökot understanding of the term shepherd (mösöwoon)?
2. What is their concept of the term commun...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• GENERAL INTRODUCTION
• THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INCULTURATION IN AFRICA
• THE PEOPLE AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF WEST PÖKOT
• THE PÖKOT UNDERSTANDING OF JOHN 10:1–16
• PASTORS’ INTERPRETATION OF JOHN 10:1–16
• TOWARDS A COMMUNITARIAN HERMENEUTICS
• GENERAL CONCLUSION
• GLOSSARY
• MAPS
• SKETCHES
• PICTURES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY