Africa and the Bible

Corrective Lenses—Critical Essays

Gene Rice, Alice Ogden Bellis

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781532658648, 9781532658662
• eBook ISBN: 9781532658679
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Africa and the Bible is a collection of essays about the African influence on and presence in the Old Testament, written over Gene Rice's more than fifty years of scholarly service at Howard University School of Divinity. They focus on characters with African heritage such as Ebed-melech and Jehudi in Jeremiah, and the prophet Zephaniah himself, as well as dealing with texts that have been misinterpreted to the detriment of African-Americans such as the story of the curse of Canaan, in which Ham and all his dark-skinned descendants are the ones viewed as cursed. One article provides evidence that the original worshippers of YHWH may have been from the land of Kush! One of Rice's earliest articles deals with the story of Joseph and relates it to Jim Crow; Rice finds in the story a model for racial reconciliation that is still relevant today. With a foreword by his colleague of many years, Cain Hope Felder, Professor of New Testament at Howard University School of Divinity, now retired, and a preface by Jonathan Rice, Gene Rice's son, the book is a treasure-trove of carefully researched, thought-provoking articles, and a perfect supplement to be used alongside a Hebrew Bible textbook.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Abbreviations
• Joseph and Jim Crow
• The Curse That Never Was
• Two Black Contemporaries of Jeremiah
• Was Amos a Racist?
• The African Roots of the Prophet Zephaniah
• Africans and the Origin of the Worship of Yahweh
• The Alleged Curse on Ham
• Book Review
• Bibliography