Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives: On Use and Abuse of Sacred Scripture

by Cain Hope Felder

Publisher:

Fortress Press

, 2023

Overview

Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives is a critical essay from Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation written by the project’s editor, Cain Hope Felder, now in a concise stand-alone book. In this important work, Felder clarifies the profound differences in racial attitudes in the biblical world and now.

The book reveals the processes at work in both the New and Old Testaments that reflect ancient ambiguity about what we call race. Felder uncovers misuses of the biblical text (such as the so-called curse of Ham) in subsequent interpretation and shows how the Bible has been used to trivialize African contributions and demean and enslave Black people. Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives challenges scholars and church people alike to a deeper and more honest engagement with the biblical text.

Key Features

• Clarifies the profound differences in racial attitudes in the biblical world and now
• Reveals the processes at work in both the NT and OT that reflect ancient ambiguity about race
• Shows how the Bible has been used to trivialize African contributions and demean and enslave Black people

Contents

• Race and Sacralization in the Old Testament
• The Curse of Ham
• Old Testament Genealogies
• The Narratives about Miriam and Aaron
• The Doctrine of Election
• Secularization in the New Testament

Product Details

• Title: Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives: On Use and Abuse of Sacred Scripture
• Author: Cain Hope Felder
• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Print Publication Date: 2023
• Pages: 54
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• ISBNs: 9781506488530, 9781506488523, 1506488536, 1506488528
• Resource ID: LLS:RCRCSMSCRSCRPTR
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-11-13T22:08:29Z

About Cain Hope Felder

Dr. Cain Hope Felder (1943-2019) was a world-renowned scholar, professor, lecturer, consultant and media interviewee. He taught New Testament Language and Literature and editor of The Journal of Religious Thought at the Howard University School of Divinity. He also served as chair of the Ph.D. program and immediate past chair of the Doctor of Ministry program. Dr. Felder held a Ph.D. and a Master of Philosophy degree in biblical languages and literature from Columbia University in New York; a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York; a Diploma of Theology from Oxford University, Mansfield College in England; a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy, Greek & Latin from Howard University in Washington, DC; and a diploma from the Boston Latin School.

Felder was born in Aiken, South Carolina, in 1943 and grew up in segregated neighborhoods in Boston. He earned his undergraduate degree from Howard, where Felder said he first learned that an African American could be a scholar. Felder was ordained in the United Methodist Church and worked as the first national director Black Methodists for Church Renewal from 1969 to 1972. He took a position as an adjunct professor at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1978. At the time, Felder was one of only about 30 African Americans with doctorates in biblical studies. He left Princeton and returned to Howard in 1981, taking a position as professor of New Testament language and literature. In the late 1980s, Felder helped start a reading series for African American Bible scholars, to help advance black Bible scholarship. In 1990, he founded the Biblical Institute of Social Change (BISC), headquartered in Washington, DC. Felder retired from Howard in 2016. 

In 1991, he edited and published a landmark collection of academic essays, Stony the Road We Trod, showing the important differences in African American interpretations of the Bible. A few years later, Felder published the Original African Heritage Study Bible. A prolific writer, his publications include True to Our Native Land (Augsburg Fortress, May, 2007), the first African American commentary on the New Testament; Troubling Biblical Waters: Race, Class, and Family (Orbis Books, 1989) – 16th printing; and The Original African Heritage Study Bible (Winston Publishing Company, 1993).

He maintained dual residences in Washington, DC, and his home haven in Mobile, Alabama, that he shared with his bride, Dr. Jewell. He was the proud father of one daughter, Miss Akidah Felds.

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