TALITHA CUM HERMENEUTICS: SOME AFRICAN WOMEN'S WAYS OF READING THE BIBLE (original) (raw)

This paper highlights the proposed “Talitha cum” African women’s biblical hermeneutics of reading through sketching the practices of four African women scholars: Mercy A. Oduyoye (Ghana); Madipoane Masenya (South Africa), Musa W. Dube (Botswana) and Teresa Okure (Nigeria). As used in this paper, Talitha Cum hermeneutics refers to the art of living in the resurrection space: the art of continually rising against the powers of death—the powers of patriarchy, the powers of colonial oppression and exploitation, the powers that produce and perpetuate poverty, disease and all forms of exclusion and dehumanization. Walking in the legacy of Kimpa Vita, African women’s talitha cum hermeneutics are ways of living and insisting on staying alive; even where one confronts oppressive powers that crushes, one dares to rise. The discussion of the above four women reading strategies is preceded by an elaboration on the source of naming, that is, Talitha cum, derived from the story of the bleeding and dying daughter of Mark 5.