Afrocentrism and Biblical Authority

Abstract

“Throughout Western history, the authority of the Bible has been predicated upon the tacit assumption of the preeminence of European cultures as somehow the most suitable and, thus, the most reliable ‘bearers of the tradition'—a tradition that has been passed on and otherwise shared with the Americas and Asia. Especially in the modern period, the attitude developed that African Americans, Afro-Asiatics, Asians, and Hispanics were quite secondary to the ancient biblical narratives. The Europeans and Euro-American church and academy historically and unevenly struggled to speak and, sometimes, to write with a vision of universalism and inclusiveness, but, actually, the church and academy thought and practiced particularity and exclusiveness without reference to the authority of what the biblical authors thought or did in their ancient contexts. Recent studies, however, help us to appreciate the biblical world as being, as one title indicates, Before Color Prejudice.”