Afro-Biblical Hermeneutics in Africa Today

Abstract

By Afro-biblical hermeneutics, we mean biblical interpretations done in Africa especially by African instituted Churches. These hermeneutical works are typically African in character in the sense that they consciously or unconsciously borrow heavily from African religious heritage, in their dialogue with the gospel of Christ. The paper sets out to demonstrate that the Biblical hermeneutics in Kenya and Africa at large was largely shaped and/or inspired by biblical translation. That is upon the Bible being translated into the local/indigenous languages, Africans began to re-interpret it in their „relevant fashions, a phenomenon which contrasted the missionary approaches. Second, biblical translations also gave rise to the birth of African independent/instituted Churches, whose hermeneutical standpoints largely speaks for the entire „Biblical hermeneutics in Africa today.‟