Africa And The Future Of Our Scholarly Past

Chapter Summary

This chapter serves as a plea for the appropriation of critical intellectual tradition for South Africa in particular and Africa in general. The severe criticism levelled against intellectual tradition and its flaws and deficiencies must be taken seriously. Thus, if critical Old Testament scholarship should ever be part of Africa's intellectual tradition, it must be re-interpreted and reformulated decisively and the chapter is an attempt in that direction. We must rather appropriate them because there-in lies great possibilities for understanding the text and our context. The chapter should be seen as a play with the possibilities which the historical understanding and historical criticism of the past few centuries have made available to us.

Keywords: Africa's intellectual tradition; Old Testament scholarship; scholarly past