True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary

This edition has been replaced with True to Our Native Land, Second Edition.

This pioneering commentary sets biblical interpretation firmly in the context of Black experiences and concerns. Cutting-edge scholarship that is in tune with the Black church calls into question many of the canons of traditional biblical research and highlights the role of the Bible in African American history, accenting themes of ethnicity, class, slavery, and African heritage as these play a role in Christian scripture and the Christian odyssey of an emancipated people. Contributors include the volume editors, Thomas Hoyt, Gay L. Byron, Vincent Wimbush, and sixteen other notable scholars.

Brian K. Blount is president and professor of New Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary, Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina. His scholarship focuses on the Gospel of Mark, the book of Revelation, cultural hermeneutics, and New Testament ethics. He is the author of Cultural Interpretation: Reorienting New Testament Criticism (1995); Go Preach! Mark's Kingdom Message and the Black Church Today (1998); Then the Whisper Put On Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context (2001); Struggling with Scripture, with Walter Brueggemann and William Placher (2001); Preaching the Gospel of Mark in Two Voices, with Gary W. Charles (2002); Can I Get a Witness? Reading Revelation through an African American Lens (2005); Revelation: A Commentary (2009); and Invasion of the Dead: Preaching Resurrection (2014). With Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, he has coedited Making Room at the Table: An Invitation to Multicultural Worship (2000).

Cain Hope Felder (1943-2019) served as professor of New Testament language and literature at Howard University's School of Divinity from 1981 until his retirement in 2016. He was the author or editor of several books, including two other Fortress titles: True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (2007) and Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives (2002).

Emerson B. Powery is professor of biblical studies and assistant dean of the School of Arts, Culture, and Society at Messiah University, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He is general editor of the Westminster Study Bible (Westminster John Knox, forthcoming). He is the author of The Good Samaritan: Luke 10 for the Life of the Church (Baker, 2022); Genesis of Liberation: Biblical Interpretation in the Antebellum Narratives of the Enslaved, with Rodney Sadler (Westminster John Knox, 2016); Jesus Reads Scripture (Brill, 2003); and editor of The Spirit and the Mind: Essays in Informed Pentecostalism (UPA, 2000).

Clarice J. Martin is Jean Picker Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Colgate University and author of "The Eyes Have It: Slavery in the Communities of Christ-Believers," in Christian Origins, vol. 1 of A People's History of Early Christianity (2005, 0-8006-3411-X).