Interpreting ‘the exile’ in African biblical scholarship

The dominant interpretive paradigm in African biblical scholarship involves a socio­historical comparative analysis of the biblical text and the African context. While the analytical processes employed in each of two major constituent parts ­­ biblical text and African context are clear, the third part of the interpretive act, namely the actual comparative appropriation is less clear. Nigerian scholar Justin Ukpong and South African scholar Jonathan Draper (via the work of Cristina Grenholm and Daniel Patte) are the clearest about the interpretive elements that brings the biblical text and the African context into conversation, and yet even in these cases the ideo­theological dimensions of the appropriative act are somewhat obscured.