African American Readings of Paul

Abstract Lisa Bowens’s African American Readings of Paul provides a fascinating adventure for all those interested in reception history of Paul and/or the history of the Black Church in the United States. Although also engaging modern scholarship, Bowens allows the historic voices of the Black Church to speak for themselves, thus sometimes challenging paradigms established by earlier scholars working from more limited evidence. When enslaved persons read the Bible, they embraced its liberationist and justice-oriented principles, rescuing Paul from the counterreadings of the slaveholders. Bowens sympathetically highlights the spiritual experiences of historic African American readers, by which they appropriated Paul’s ethos more deeply. Applying the same principles, African American women recognized Paul’s appreciation for women ministry colleagues and so contextualized his apparent prohibitions of women in ministry. The figures treated in this book are of more than historical interest; they often provide models of faithful discipleship and faithful readings of Scripture for readers today.