Major Review: Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope

Abstract

afrIcan amerIcan InterpretIve approaches are more diverse and complicated than is usually recognized. These two books testify to the diversity of the African American experience, albeit in very different ways. McCaulley draws attention to a type of African American biblical interpretation often overlooked by academics: a church-based approach that differs from Black progressive, Black secular, White evangelical, and White mainline approaches. Junior and Schipper, meanwhile, examine the complex and divergent ways in which the Samson story of Judges 13–16 has been appropriated in discussions of race in America.