Reading the Bible from the Location of Ethnic Minorities

Daniel S. Thiagarajah ¹

"Ethnic Minorities" is an expression that represents a combination of the terms "ethnic group" and "minority group," both of which are basic concepts in the study of inter-group relations. With regard to 'ethnic group,' definitions vary widely not only in terms of historical usage but also with regard to perspective and ideology. Ethnicity is not a self-evident and fixed concept grounded in nature or genetics. It is a social construct with an underlying historical and ideological base. My own use of this term is social in nature. It is singled out as a social group, whether good or bad, either from inside or outside the differentiated groups, on the basis of certain cultural or physical characteristics.

The term 'minority group' is often used for ethnic or racial groups and implies the existence of a majority group and of ethnic stratification. 'Minority group' is not just a descriptive classification but also an evaluative category. I employ the expression 'ethnic minorities' to mean individuals from social groups, whether culturally (ethnically) identified as such, who have traditionally been considered inferior within a scale of stratification set up by the West and operative in all theological disciplines, including biblical criticism.

There are at least two factors in the contemporary scene that may be regarded as fundamental for the life and role of ethnic minorities in biblical studies. The first is the world of global affairs or geopolitical context; and the second is the world of biblical criticism or disciplinary context.

World of Global Affairs: Geopolitical Context

In a much-debated article on world politics, Samuel Huntington has argued that global politics is presently entering a new and different phase of development². For Huntington, this new phase in question is marked not so much by the end of history, the return of traditional rivalries among nation-states, or the decline of the nation-state in the face of tribalism and globalism, but rather by a new source of conflict in the world, neither economic nor ideological but cultural. He says, "It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in the New World will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural."³ As such, nation-states will neither disappear nor go into a period of decline. To the contrary, they shall continue to function as the most powerful actors in world affairs. Huntington continues, "Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilisations. The clash of civilisations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilisations will be the battle lines of the future." ⁴

This new phase represents the latest stage in the evolution of conflict in modern political world. Thus, while in the past, conflict has been by and large the result of conflicts within Western civilization, and with all non-Western peoples and governments as objects of history, from this point on conflict will be driven by conflicts between civilizations. The earlier development of conflict, encompassing the last 350 years of Western history (1640s-1990s), Huntington traces in terms of the following three stages:

(i) For about a century and a half after the Peace of Westphalia (1648-1789), i.e. from the end of the thirty-year war and the emergence of modern international system in 1648 to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, conflicts in the West consisted largely of conflicts among princes attempting to expand their boundaries, bureaucracies and armies.

(ii) For the next one hundred and twenty-five years (1789-1914/18), i.e. from the aftermath of the French Revolution (1789) to the conclusion of the First World War in 1918, conflict in the Western world took the form of conflicts between or among nation-states. As princes expanded the territories over which they ruled, nation-states came into being and clashed with one another over the long course of the 19th century and right into the first decades of the 20th century.

(iii) For the next seventy years, and hence the greater part of the 20th century (1918-1989), i.e. from the aftermath of World War I (1918), especially in terms of Russian Revolution and the reaction against it until the implosion of the Soviet Empire and the end of the Cold War in 1989, conflict in the West consisted of conflicts involving ideologies.

From a geopolitical point of view, therefore, ethnic or racial minorities in biblical studies, whether based in their respective countries and cultures or in the West itself, represent by and large the children of cultures: (a) formerly controlled by the West; (b) trapped until recently as pawns within the dualistic struggle between the free world or First World and the communist world or Second World; and (c) now beginning to attain a measure of self-identity, self-consciousness, and self-determination, cultural and otherwise.

In the end, the broad geopolitical shift outlined by Huntington will have a further and inevitable effect on ethnic minorities in all theological disciplines, including biblical criticism, as these people proceed to reflect more and more on what it means to do theology and read and interpret the Bible from their own social locations.

World of Biblical Criticism: Disciplinary Context

At present biblical criticism is a discipline that finds itself in a situation of seemingly stable anomie or liminality, partially due to a number of theoretical and methodological developments within the discipline itself in the course of the last twenty-five years or so, and also partially because of certain important socio-cultural developments.


Following a pattern across a broad disciplinary spectrum and within religious and theological studies in general, biblical criticism had witnessed during the last 20 years or so an influx of 'outsiders' into the discipline. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, this discipline had remained exclusively the preserve of Western males. These outsiders included individuals who had never been part of the field before but now for the first time are making their voices heard.

They began to question the character and agenda of biblical criticism, especially with respect to the unquestioned and unquestionable construct of scientific researcher as objective and impartial; the universal and informed reader, operative in one form or another not only in historical criticism but also in literary and cultural criticism. They began to raise the radical question of contextualization and perspective. This growing insistence on the situated and interested nature of all reading and interpretation brought additional, pointed, and unrelenting pressure on biblical criticism, which is already in a serious turmoil as a result of internal methodological and theoretical challenges.

Ethnic minorities in biblical studies have resisted and continue to resist any view of criticism as timeless and value-free. They view criticism as thoroughly enmeshed in the public arena and as irretrievably political in character and ramifications, both from the viewpoint of the narrower meaning of this term (the realm of politics within the sphere of the sociopolitical) and its broader meaning (the realm of power within the sphere of the ideological). In other words, ethnic minorities insist on reading with their own eyes and making their own voices heard in an explicit and public fashion.

Whether at home or in diaspora, children of non-Western cultures are at a defining time in international politics, a time when the long era of Western global domination begins to draw to a close and the 'rest' begin to regard and exert themselves as subjects of history.

The dominant Western and modernist myth of the impartial and objective observer, and the ideal and universal reader are called into question. Instead, there is a call for an explicit focus on real readers.

Life and Role of Ethnic Minorities in Biblical Studies:
A Geo-Political Perspective

Biblical criticism is perceived as both alien and alienating by ethnic minorities. On the one hand, the roots and moorings of our discipline have been profoundly and understandably Western. As such, the canon of works and authors to be read, issues and concerns in question, historical contexts and perspectives to be studied, and interpretive frameworks and traditions to be used in the analysis of all these have been those of the West. As ethnic minorities enter the discipline from outside the West, they find that neither content nor mode of discourse is their own. They find themselves, their works and authors, their interpretive frameworks and traditions, their issues and concerns, not only out of place but also out of sight.⁵ For such individuals, therefore, to pursue biblical studies is to enter yet another dimension of the Western world and to see the biblical world as re-constructed and re-presented by the West.

On the other hand, the problem is not only of different contents and modes of discourse but also of socio-cultural perception and attitude. One must keep in mind the dynamics of hegemony and colonialism � the relationship between centre and margins, dominant group and subordinate groups, majority group and minority groups. Colonial discourse and practice function largely in terms of binary oppositions: a primary opposition of centre/margins engendering and supporting a number of other oppositions, such as superior/inferior, civilized/savage, advanced/primitive � all coalescing at the end in the traditional geopolitical opposition of the West/rest. Consequently, ethnic minorities enter not only an alien context in biblical studies but also an alienating context, where their content and mode of discourse are not acknowledged, much less accepted or respected, as equal though different vision of reality. For them, therefore, to pursue biblical studies is to enter further into the world of social stratification set up by the West vis-a-vis "the other".

A Disciplinary Perspective

From a disciplinary perspective, ethnic minorities tend to be quite conscious and open about their agenda and social location. Many Westerners by and large tend to hold on to the construct of impartial and objective observers. Their own perspective and contextualization are not acknowledged, much less analyzed, because the construct of a universal and disinterested gaze prevents them from doing so. From such a normative gaze, therefore, what ethnic minorities do is seen as contextual and limited. As a result, a particular historical experience and cultural reality as particularized and contextualized as any other is bracketed and universalized as normative human experience and reality. This is the experience of the centre; while the rest are unable to transcend their own social locations at the margins.

The discipline of biblical studies is a struggle for many ethnic minorities as they deal with discourse and practice that are not their own, that do not value their own discourse and practice, that refuse to see them and their work as particular and contextual, and that have a structural aversion to conflict and confrontation. Ethnic minorities are constantly reminded of their marginal status and role in both discipline and profession. Such conditions give rise to a sense of struggle that distinguishes their life in biblical criticism.

At this juncture in biblical studies ethnic minorities embody a profound contradiction. Their emergence as subjects of history on the world stage, the utter demise of the modernist construct of the ideal observer and narrator and its replacement with the postmodernist construct of the always situated and engaged narrator and observer � all these favour ethnic minorities. At the same time, ethnic minorities continue to live a life of struggle. It is hard for the centre to accept the loss of the centre; to admit that the centre has not only shifted but actually disintegrated, giving rise to a multiplicity of voices. This makes it even more difficult to engage all other voices in dialogue as one among many.

Conclusion: Future of Biblical Studies

The future of biblical studies is a postcolonial, post-western future. In that future, ethnic minorities will have a fundamental and decisive role to play. It is the future in which reading and interpretation of the Bible will be pursued and analyzed from different contexts and perspectives, social locations and agendas, places and ideologies. It is a future having the following tasks before us:

1. First and foremost, what is necessary is a re-reading and interpretation of biblical texts from outside Western context, with focus on such issues as: self-construction of early Christian groups; construction of the "other" (those outside the group boundaries); and of their relationship vis-a-vis "others"; construction of the political realm and their relationship to it, whether at the imperial or local level; visions of a different world, in which peace and justice prevail.

2. A critical reading of the re-construction and re-interpretation of early Christianity on the part of the West, with focus on such questions as how it was presented or the poetics of the construction; why it was presented in the way it was presented or the rhetoric of the construction; and for whose benefit or detriment it was presented in the way it was presented, or the ideology of the construction.

3. A thorough analysis of the relationship between biblical interpretation and Western hegemony and colonialism, especially in the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when both the formation of the discipline and the process of expansionism found themselves at their respective peaks.

4. Beyond a re-reading of texts, a critical dialogue and engagement with the texts, their construction and ideologies in the light of one's own contextualization and perspective. There is a need to address the wider vision of how to read and interpret the Bible in the aftermath of centuries of domination, discrimination, exploitation, and the wholesale displacement and extermination of countless "others."