Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldvi... more Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin's scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and American race scientists were fundamentally Christian in their orientation. This paper outlines how interpretations of the Hebrew Bible within this Christian Weltanschauung facilitated the development and articulation of racial theories which burgeoned in western intellectual discourse up to and during the 19th century. The book of Genesis was a particular seedbed for identity politics as the origin stories of the Hebrew Bible were plundered in service of articulating a racial hierarchy which justified both the place of Europeans at the pinnacle of divine creation and the denigration, bestialization, and enslavement of Africans as the worst of human filiation. That the racial ethos of the period dictated both the questions exegetes posed and the conclusions they derived from the text demonstrates that biblical interpretation within this climate was never an innocuous pursuit, but rather reflected the values and beliefs current in the social context of the exegete.
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible Negotiating Ethnic Identity in the Past and Present
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the... more Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age. Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.
The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along ... more The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the historical context from which the book derives. While it remains true that careful historical analysis has advanced our understanding of the world in which the seer of Patmos lived and wrote, a strictly contemporary historical focus threatens to confine the significance of this apocalyptic symbol to the environs of the first century. In seeking to recover the theological and contemporary relevance of this symbol as a critique of imperial ambitions, this thesis argues for a reading strategy which locates the Book of Revelation foremost in the context of "canon." Such a reading stance illuminates the meaning of the symbolic beast in relationship to the deep intertextual and theological history which the final book of the Bible shares with the cano...
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, Nov 1, 2018
By submitting this thesis/dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work co... more By submitting this thesis/dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification
By submitting this thesis/dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work co... more By submitting this thesis/dissertation electronically, I declare that the entirety of the work contained therein is my own, original work, that I am the sole author thereof (save to the extent explicitly otherwise stated), that reproduction and publication thereof by Stellenbosch University will not infringe any third party rights and that I have not previously in its entirety or in part submitted it for obtaining any qualification
It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Chris... more It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Christian faith and practice in a myriad of ways, including giving rise to a vibrant Protestant missiology. Yet, what remains relatively unexplored in the context of the Reformation and Christian mission is the impact of Reformation political theology on empire-building; specifically, the connection between Protestant mission and the extension of European political hegemony over distant lands, which began in the early modern period. This study attempts to show first that the Reformation reframing of the relationship between church and state failed to challenge the “theology of empire” inherent in Roman Catholicism, and second, that Protestant imperial expansion was equally buttressed by a religious ideology which assumed an equivalence between colonization and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. In the case of Christian expansion into the Americas both before and after the Reformation, t...
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Papers by Kevin Burrell