Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture
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Overview
In this accessible and provocative study, Brian Blount reads the book of Revelation through the lens of African American culture, drawing correspondences between Revelation’s context and the long-standing suffering of African Americans. Applying the African American social, political, and religious experience as an interpretive cipher for the book’s complicated imagery, he contends that Revelation is essentially a story of suffering and struggle amid oppressive assimilation. He examines the language of “martyr” and the image of the lamb, and shows that the thread of resistance to oppressive power that runs through John’s hymns resonates with a parallel theme in the music of African America.
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- Draws correspondences between Revelation’s context and the long-standing suffering of African Americans.
- Applies the African American experience as an interpretive cipher for the book’s complicated imagery.
- Examines the language of “martyr” and the image of the lamb.
By moving from the world of Revelation to the modern world and back again, Blount helps his readers see both with different eyes.
--Craig R. Koester, Luther Seminary
- Title: Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture
- Author: Brian K. Blount
- Publisher: Westminster John Knox
- Print Publication Date: 2005
- Logos Release Date: 2022
- Pages: 168
- Era: era:contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Subjects: Bible. N.T. Revelation › Criticism, interpretation, etc; Christianity and culture; African Americans › Religion
- ISBNs: 9780664228699, 0664228690
- Resource ID: LLS:CNGTWTNMRCNCLTR
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-12-28T15:25:15Z
Brian K. Blount is President Emeritus of Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, VA and Charlotte, NC. He was called to this position in 2007, after serving for 15 years as the Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary.
An M.Div. graduate of Princeton Seminary in 1981, he obtained his B.A. from the College of William and Mary in 1978. After graduating from Princeton Seminary, he went on to become the pastor of the Carver Memorial Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Virginia from 1982-1988. William and Mary’s first African-American to receive membership in the Alpha Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society received his Ph.D. in New Testament Studies from Emory University in 1992. He returned to teach at Princeton Seminary the same year. He was the 2011 Beecher Lecturer at the Yale Divinity School, Yale University. He served as the president of the Society of Biblical Literature from 2017-2018, and also served as the president of the Association of Theological Schools from 2018-2020.
Professor Blount’s primary work has been in the Gospel of Mark, the Book of Revelation, and in the areas of cultural studies, biblical hermeneutics, and apocalyptic theology.
The author of numerous articles, he also preaches and directs adult education classes in local congregations. He is married, and he and his wife, Sharon, have two children, Joshua and Kaylin.
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