Islands, Islanders, and the Bible: RumInations (Semeia Studies)

Explore theories, readings, and interpretations from island perspectives

In this collection the authors focus on contextual, cultural, and postcolonial criticisms. This work seeks to move beyond simply reacting to, rejecting, or recasting biblical interpretations that misunderstand or mischaracterize island space. Instead it serves as an entry point to thinking biblically through the island. The contributors are Margaret Aymer, Randall C. Bailey, Roland Boer, Steed Vernyl Davidson, Jione Havea, Hisako Kinukawa, Grant Macaskill, Mosese Ma'ilo, J. Richard Middleton, Althea Spencer Miller, Aliou C. Niang, Andrew Mein, Daniel Smith-Christopher, Nasili Vaka'uta, and Elaine M. Wainwright.

Features:

• Sixteen essays by islanders rooted in Asia, America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Oceania
• Essays that invite a conversation on how being islanders and islandedness condition the way islanders read biblical texts
• Three sections of articles, two of which engage the first

Jione Havea, a native of Tonga, is Principal Researcher at the Public and Contextual Theology Research Centre, Charles Sturt University (Australia). He is the author of Elusions of Control: Biblical Law on the Words of Women (Society of Biblical Literature) and co-editor of Out of Place: Doing Theology on the Crosscultural Brink (Equinox).

Margaret Aymer is Associate Professor of New Testament at Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta and will become Associate Professor of New Testament at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in July, 2015. Her publications include First Pure, Then Peaceable: Frederick Douglass Reads James (T&T Clark) and numerous essays on the New Testament.

Steed Vernyl Davidson is Associate Professor of Old Testament at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific (Berkeley) and will become Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible at McCormick Theological Seminary in July, 2015. He is the author of Empire and Exile: Postcolonial Readings of the Book of Jeremiah (T&T Clark) as well as various writings on the Hebrew Bible.