Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible [Paperback]

John R. Levison (Author), Priscilla Pope-Levison (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1999

In Return to Babel, each of ten historically significant biblical texts is interpreted by three scholars: one Latin American, one African, and one Asian. Geographic locales range from a tiny village in the Philippines to the city of Nairobi, Kenya; from Gwangju, South Korea, with its one million inhabitants, to the frontier city of Wiwili in the northern mountains of Nicaragua. The result is a collection of essays that shed new light on familiar texts and make the reader aware of the ways in which culture can shape our understanding of Scripture.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John R. Levison is Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. He is the author of Filled with the Spirit and coeditor of Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible.

Priscilla Pope-Levison is Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women's Studies at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington. She is the author of Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists and coeditor of Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press; 1st edition (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0664258239
• ISBN-13: 978-0664258238
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #318,962 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jack Levison (b. 1956) grew up in a small tract house on Long Island, New York. He left to attend Wheaton College, where a professor urged him to study at Cambridge University, based upon the resplendent daffodil season and not the wintry toilet seats, which were positively icy. At Duke University (Ph.D.), Jack fell in love with a divinity student, Priscilla Pope, with whom he now shares a job, a home, two companionable teenagers, and a black mutt named Maggie. Jack has received extensive funding from the Lilly Fellows Program, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the National Humanities Center, the Louisville Institute, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the International Catacomb Society, and the TransCoop Program of the Humboldt Foundation. He founded a new book series, Ekstasis: Religious Experience From Antiquity to the Middle Ages, and he is Professor of New Testament at Seattle Pacific University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What does a dying sheep in the Africa have to do with Jesus?, February 5, 2001

By 

Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible (Paperback)

We all "see through a glass, darkly" and our understanding is affected by our viewpoint. Perspective is the capacity to view and understand things in their true relation or relative importance to the world we live in.

In North America, when we look at the text of the Bible, we do so from our own "perspective". Each reading of the text is read from our own bias. Often we are unaware of the excess luggage that we are toting with us. We have integrated into our consciousness the concepts of capitalistic consumerism, democracy, individualism and freedom, just to name a few.

Trade places with a poor, oppressed African woman, living with six hungry children, hoping for any messiah to show up; walk with her and consider how she would respond to the teaching of the Bible you read. How then would you understand a saying out of Ecclesiastes like "There is a time for everything... a time to mourn and a time to dance" or if she read "If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things"?

What the editors of "Return to Babel", have collected over six years, is different perspectives from fifteen various authors, all from the non-western world. Latin American, African and Asian contributors write a threefold commentary on five Old Testament texts (Genesis 11, Exodus 20, Psalm 23, Eccl. 3 and Isaiah 52) and five New Testament texts (Matthew 5, John 1, Acts2, I Cor. 15, and Rev. 21). The majority of these writers, though educated, are not academic theologians. They are individuals from every walk of life, who encounter daily suffering and oppression and have committed themselves to social change.

To read outside my own perspective is not only challenging, but also unsettling. The stories, proverbs, cultural insights of familiar Biblical text never cease to engage me. The African's read Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd" , from a viewpoint where the people live daily with their domestic animals, caring for them often at a great expense to themselves. To hear their perspective, their commentary, on this Psalm is refreshing. Yearly, our world is growing smaller and the panorama by which we look upon other cultures needs to be deep and wide. If you are a student of the Old or New Testament then you serve yourself well to get a copy of "Return to Babel". Highly Recommended

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An thrilling introduction to cultural exegesis, March 24, 2000

By 

Mark McEntire - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible (Paperback)

This collection of thirty essays brings together an amazing chorus of voices to talk about the Bible. The editors have chosen ten important biblical texts, each of which is interpreted here in three separate essays - one from an African, one from Asian , and one from a Latin American. The result is a panoramic view of what the Bible means in the lives of people from a great variety of settings. Each author first establishes a context for reading the text, a particular situation within her or his own culture. A second section in each essay then addresses the meaning of the text itself. In a third section called "Reflection," context and text are brought together. Without fail this procedure illustrates the dynamic ability of the biblical text to address human culture. Most readers are bound to encounter some very different points of view from their own. Those accustomed to hearing the Bible interpreted only by persons much like themselves will often be startled or even disturbed, but the resulting expansion of understanding is a prize worth the moments of discomfort.