Musa W. Dube, ed., Other Ways of Reading: African Women and the Bible. - book review

Atlanta, Society of Biblical Literature, and Geneva, WCC Publications, 2001, 254pp., Sfr44.00, US$26.00, 17.95 [pounds sterling], 29.00 [euro].

This book is unprecedented. A garland of contributions by an agglomerate of professional women intellectuals on the continent and abroad illuminates its pages. Frank and unfettered, they aim to subvert patriarchy, both "African" and "biblical", to conscientize women, and to resist the forces of oppression, by delving into cultural hermeneutics in post-colonial feminist perspective with passion, determination and skill.

The book consists of an introduction by the editor, followed by ten major contributions and three responses. The ten contributions ramify into five categories. In the first category, "Storytelling Methods and Interpretations", three scholars, Rose Teteki Abbey, Mmadipoane (Ngwana 'Mphahlele) Masenya and Musa W. Dube, explore the wisdom of the African story-telling hermeneutic, whose basic characteristic is "openness" to offer "a continuous and fresh retelling". Telling the story maintains the "vigour" and "vitality" otherwise lost when it is condensed into writing. The technique challenges the effectiveness of rigid scientistic interpretations.

The opening essay is well chosen. In the poetic "I Am the Woman", Abbey offers a critique of society in the way it deals with women. A mimesis of the Samaritan woman, the woman caught in adultery and the Martha at the feet of Jesus, she mocks religion where it is partial and enslaving, but celebrates Jesus as liberating. To catch a glimpse of her ironic genius, she turns tables on her accusers in being "caught in the act of adultery", with humour: "How does one commit adultery alone?"

Finding narrative resemblances between the northern Sotho folk-tales and the biblical story of Esther, Masenya critiques global society on ethical issues. Her efforts are complemented by Dube, who powerfully reads Mark 5:24-43 to identify the woman with hemorrhage with Africa as a bleeding mother trying to save her children from the evils of colonialism and its legacy--evils that often disguise themselves as blessings.

The second category, "Patriarchal and Colonizing Translations", includes two articles by Dora R. Mbuwayesango and Gomang Seratwa Ntloedibe-Kuswani, who problematize missionary translations of the Bible into vernacular. In effect, the God of the Bible was made to replace Mwari and Modimo, the gods of the indigenous Shona and Setswana respectively. The authors expose the distortions that resulted from the transaction. While both Mwari and Modimo were originally neuter, the appropriation of these deities by the translators forged new identities, assigning to them male genders and even (as in the case of Modimo) making them anthropomorphic. Further, this process deprived the Shona and the Setswana of their gods, making Mwari and Modimo "exiled" to become gods of the Israelites. The scholars call for the reclamation of the deities.

With no rhetorical gambits and no "cheap shots", Musimbi Kanyoro and Gloria Kehilwe Plaatjie offer a self-critique on the agenda of liberation of African women, in the third category, "Reading with and from Nonacademic Readers". Using different analytic and stylistic approaches and claiming no absolutisms, both argue from context (for example, Plaatjie from a South African post-apartheid context) for a revision of methods that might involve all women effectively. Kanyoro dares the African woman to reflect on the possible collusion of women in the forces that marginalize and oppress, but advocates a feminism that would involve men as friends in the quest for change. In the same vein, Plaatjie will critique Masenya's bosadi (womanhood) hermeneutic as taking oppressive cultures for granted.

Two articles are found in the fourth category, "Womanhood and Womanist Methods": one by Masenya, who applies the bosadi hermeneutic in reading Proverbs 31:10-31, and one by Sarojini Nadar, who reads the character of Ruth to unleash its mimetic potential to empower the South African woman who is widowed, divorced or has a "husband not living in residence". Like Ruth, they can transform their situations from helplessness to happiness.

In the last, but indeed not least, fifth category Musa Dube exerts her skills in post-colonial hermeneutics to read Ruth's story for international relations, using the cultural practice of divination. Dube sees both Naomi and Ruth to represent two nations, and "divines" international relations reflected in the two women as unhealthy.

The final three articles are brilliant responses by Phyllis A. Bird, a North American feminist woman, Nyambura J. Njoroge, an East African woman theologian from Kenya, and a South African male theologian, Tinyiko S. Maluleke.

Here is a book that heralds a cultural hermeneutic worthy of praise. Not satisfied with making snide thrusts and clever parries, the effect of the articles is nothing short of impressive. Some readers might have a few reservations about terms such as "patriarchy", "oppression" etc., that remain unpacked. Indeed it is unclear how striking similarities in comparative narrative can of itself transform structures recognized as oppressive; and it is even more difficult to see how reclaiming the old gods Modimo and Mwari (and, if you will, others like them--Mulungu, Katonda, Nzambe and so on) from exile would be more desirable than maintaining a transcendental deity with cosmic, universally binding salvific power. In the absence of such harmonizing theogonic energy, all our Mwaris and Modimos would divide rather than unite, and unity is what the African ethic needs the most.