Doctoral Degrees (Practical Theology and Missiology)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Practical Theology and Missiology) by browse.metadata.advisor "Botha, Jan"

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    Reinventing ourselves : white male biblical scholars and the responsibility towards the other
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2003-03) Pérez, Garcés Juan Luis; Botha, Jan; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Theology. Dept. of Practical Theology & Missiology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The problem discussed in this thesis is how to resist and subvert the complicity of biblical studies with neo-colonialism as a white male biblical scholar. Traditionally the interpretation of the bible by white male biblical scholars has not been recognised as an interested and situated practice, unlike the interpretations by readers from marginalised backgrounds. The thesis put forward here is that it is the other - understood as infinite and irreducible - that opens up the habitual vicious circle of identity formation and identifiable practices. This interruption is a moment of true decision, i.e. a moment where the self cannot follow any preestablished ethico-political programme but has to respond in a truly innovative way. This innovation is understood to be brought about in a double strategy, which juxtaposes a hegemonic practice with its binary opposition in a nondialectical way. The space in which such an interruption occurs is the interstitial borderline, the liminal space and interface between the self and its other. In the first part, the thesis critically engages with the work of three white male biblical scholars - Daniel Patte, Jeffrey Staley, and Gerald West - who try to overcome the traditional academic discourse of biblical studies by problematising the relationship between their own identities and their academic practices. In the second part, deconstruction, as shorthand for the work of Jacques Derrida, is subsequently presented as a thoroughly postcolonial critique of western ontological concepts and as a viable manner in which to theorise the critical contributions of Patte, Staley, and West. In the third and final part, three approaches within biblical studies - historicism, the bible as popular text, and literary approaches - are singled out and discussed as possible liminal spaces within which the identity of the white male biblical scholar can be reinvented in responsibility to the other.