Reading Jeremiah in Africa: Biblical Essays in Sociopolitical Imagination

by Bungishabaku Katho

Overview

The book of Jeremiah is often presented as one of the most difficult texts in the Bible, yet it is also a text that speaks with immediacy and power to some of the greatest challenges facing our world today. In Reading Jeremiah in Africa, Dr. Bungishabaku Katho offers a study that is both accessible and deeply relevant to the particularities of an African context. In a series of ten selected passages, Dr. Katho demonstrates the many parallels between Jeremiah’s Judah and a continent that continues to experience the complex and devastating realities of poverty, injustice, and war. Katho reminds us, however, that Jeremiah is also an exercise in imagination. It is a book of hope, and Katho, like Jeremiah, dares to dream past the present and into a future where God is known and humans flourish.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781839735042
Publisher:	Langham Creative Projects
Publication date:	05/10/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	230
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

BUNGISHABAKU KATHO has a PhD in Biblical Studies from the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. He is professor of Old Testament Studies at the Université Shalom de Bunia, DR Congo, where he also serves as Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Theology. He is also senior researcher at the Centre de Recherche Multidisciplinaire pour le Développement de Bunia (CRMD Bunia). Dr Katho is founder and executive director of the Jeremiah Center for Faith and Society, and he has written and presented extensively on the book of Jeremiah, including a commentary in French in the Commentaires Bibliques Contemporains series.

Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgements
2. Introduction
3. Called to Serve in a World Coming to an End Jeremiah 1:1-19
4. Idolatry and the Peril of the Nation Jeremiah 2:4-8
5. Agonizing for a Blind People Jeremiah 4:19-22
6. Poverty and Knowledge of God Jeremiah 5:1-6
7. The Anatomy of a Dysfunctional Community Jeremiah 9:2-9
8. The Secret of True Greatness and Power Jeremiah 9:23-24
9. The Use and Abuse of Political Power Jeremiah 22:13-19
10. Weak Leadership and the Dismantling of Judah Jeremiah 24:4-7
11. Seek the Peace of Babylon: Constructive Presence in Exile Jeremiah 29:4-9
12. New Covenant and New Community Jeremiah 31:31-34
13. Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Bungishabaku Katho provides an important and welcome addition to our rich corpus of Jeremiah studies. He shows the ways in which the text makes especially compelling sense when read in this context. Given the broad and deep crisis in our culture, attention must be paid to this careful and discerning study.

Walter Brueggemann, PhD

William Marcellus McPheeters Professor Emeritus of Old Testament,

Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia, USA

This is something genuinely new under the sun - a fresh reading of the most anguished biblical prophet against the background of contemporary Africa. Western Christians need to learn from this book what it is to read the Bible within the context of a faith community that knows its future depends entirely on the mercy and grace of God.

Ellen F. Davis, PhD

Amos Ragan Kearns Distinguished Professor of Bible and Practical Theology,

Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina, USA

In this important book, we hear the voice of Jeremiah speaking through the voice of a courageous African scholar and church leader to his beloved - but troubled - continent and its Christians. It is a careful, perceptive, honest, and ultimately hopeful treatment of Jeremiah in light of Africa, and of Africa in light of Jeremiah.

Michael J. Gorman, PhD

Raymond E. Brown Professor of Biblical Studies and Theology,

St. Mary's Seminary & University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Katho relates Jeremiah's message to the African situation from the point of view of love for the continent and a deep desire that the continent returns to and maintains that which Yahweh loves - justice, righteousness, and loyalty to God, among other virtues - as expressed in many anthems and constitutions of African nations.

Samuel M. Ngewa, PhD

Dean of Graduate School,

Africa International University, Nairobi, Kenya

From the Publisher