Postcolonial Biblical interpretation in post-apartheid South Africa: the [Gebira] in the Hebrew Bible in the light of Queen Jezebel and the Queen Mother of Lemuel

Abstract

The thesis defended in this dissertation is that postcolonial biblical interpretation is a viable interpretive strategy for the reading of the Hebrew Bible by black African women in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing its methodological cues from Musa W. Dube's postcolonial feminist biblical interpretation, Itumeleng J. Mosala's historical and cultural-materialist hermeneutics, African women's theologies, and African-American Womanism, this dissertation introduces a postcolonial Imbokodo hermeneutics as a heuristic symbol suitable for the interpretation of biblical texts by South African black women. This dissertation advances the need for black women to utilize the following tenets of a postcolonial Imbokodo hermeneutics when interfacing with biblical texts: Keeping black women's memories alive through historical restitution; examining the dynamics of ethnicity and identity politics; considering black women's struggles against unjust patriarchal systems including a consideration of the black women's struggles for survival and the pervasiveness of class; addressing black women's struggles against socio-economic injustice by identifying the oppressors and the submerged struggles of the oppressed, and engaging black women in the struggle for land restitution. Queens and Queen Mothers in Egypt, Kush, the Hebrew Bible, and in Africa are examined with more emphasis laid on the social roles of Queens and Queen Mothers in the Hebrew Bible, namely, Bathsheba, Maacah, Athaliah, Jezebel, and the Queen Mother of Lemuel. The role of Jezebel in the story of Naboth's vineyard (I Kgs 21:1--16) is placed under a postcolonial Imbokodo spotlight and read in the context of black women's struggles in post-apartheid South Africa thus unearthing and foregrounding the hidden struggles of Naboth's wife. Jezebel's role in this story is viewed as that of a treacherous Phoenician colonizing Queen who utilized identity politics negatively not a just leader who counseled her husband king Ahab wisely. An analysis of the Queen Mother of Lemuel's instruction through Imbokodo lenses demonstrates that she is a cagey figure who can dupe black women into believing that she is advocating for justice whereas the prevalent emphasis in her instruction is charity, a non-starter for black women in postcolonial contexts whose quests are primarily for the transformative praxis of oppressive structures not perpetual donations.