Albert Ngengi Mundele

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Manuel d´Approches Bibliques en Afrique

About Me

Albert Ngengi Mundele: Nairobi, Kenya; Fr. Albert Ngengi Mundele was appointed Director of BICAM-CEBAM on June 2017 by SECAM Chairman, His Grace Gabriel Mbilingi, Archbishop of Lubango in Angola. he is a priest of Kenge Diocese (DRC). He obtained a Licentiate in Biblical Sciences from the Biblicum of Rome (1991) and Doctorate at the University of Munich (Germany) (2002). He is a Professor of Sacred Scriptures (OT), Biblical methods and approaches and biblical languages (Hebrew and Greek) at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA)/Nairobi and at the Catholic University of Congo (UCC)/Kinshasa. He is polyglot: fluent in French, English, Italian and German; relatively good in Portuguese. African languages: very good in Kikongo and Lingala and relatively good in Kiswahili. Biblical Greek and Hebrew, Latin and Hittite. Scientific Associations. Fr. A.N. Mundele is a member of: the Pan-African Association of Catholic Exegetes (PACE), the Association of African Theologians (AAT) and the Institute for Biblical Scholarship in Africa (IBSA)/Nairobi. Emails : bicamcebam.dr@gmail.com ; ngengi_mundele@yahoo.fr Mobile: + 254 702 847 971

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HIV & AIDS in Africa How to read the bible in a continent wounded by crises

cahiers Evangile 176

Manuel d´Approches Bibliques en Afrique

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Donne-leur des reperes

A Handbook on African Approaches to Biblical Interpretation

Preface by Prof. Paulin Poucouta (A Handbook on African Approaches to Biblical Interpretation)

Preface

Theology in the African context necessarily requires an African reading of the Bible. Thus, so that this reading may be existential and illuminate Africans and their history, E. Mveng invites us to “to face all obstacles, to study the language and the biblical traditions, to go until the sources, to the sources of the Bible and to the sources of our cultural inheritance and to allow the Universal Church finally to live in communion with our experience (…).”^{^[1]}

In consideration of this call, African biblical scholars regularly meet and publish their works in view of promoting scientific studies on the Bible from an African perspective.[2] Reflections, workshops, articles and other researched works also contribute to this promotion. Many students and researchers are interested in it. However, it is a demanding enterprise that requires a systematic and pragmatic approach. That is what Rev. Dr. Albert Ngengi Mundele, Professor of the Old Testament, biblical methodologies and biblical languages at the Catholic University in Nairobi-Kenya, proposes to us in this present work.

First of all, the author reminds that the concern for re-appropriating the Word of God is not new. One finds it in Judaism as well as in the Church, from its beginnings up to today. At each stage, the Word of God is read in context, with the aid of various methods. The Pontifical Biblical Commission gives us the main methods.[3] In the same way, an African approach to the Bible must be applied with rigour, resisting the temptation to bypass critical study of the text. The Word of God is not the property of anybody and any people. It must keep its character extra nos.

To achieve this project, Rev. Dr. Mundele leans on the methodological proposition of the school of Kinshasa that Professor J.B Matand has both summarised and critiqued. It contains three stages: contextualization, de-contextualization and re-contextualization. The first introduces us into the author's world - that is essentially a diachronic approach. The second leads us into the world of the text through various approaches of literary analysis. But Rev. Dr. Mundele inverts the two first stages. Because of the centrality of the text, he recommends that the second stage (study of the text) becomes the first stage of survey. However, these first two moments require a good knowledge of biblical languages, the Ancient Near Orient and the various exegetical approaches.

The third stage brings us to the world of today reader's, in this case that of Africa, by a critical and rigorous confrontation with the Word of God. For the author, this comparative survey is the climax of the African approach to the Bible. To avoid all risks of “concord” or ideological reading, each of the two worlds must be studied with thoroughness, employing anthropological, sociological, linguistic and other disciplines: “This compares and uses appropriate African concepts to illuminate the meaning of the corresponding biblical concepts, and finally to point out the new understanding and application of the biblical text in African context” (p.19-20).

Rev. Dr. Mundele delivers to us here the fruit of several years of work with students preparing theses and dissertations for masters’ and doctoral programmes. Written in a clear and very educational language, the work uses a framework with a step-by-step reminder of the essentials of the approach. Besides, it proposes exercises at each stage. Furthermore, this approach is synchronic as well as diachronic and inter textual. The author also puts at the disposal of his readers tools which permit them to enter in contact with the biblical scholarship in Africa. Finally, as a good polyglot, the author opens us so much to the publications of Africa in French rather than the English language.

The reading of “A Handbook on African Approaches to Biblical Interpretation” has awakened in us numerous intuitions. Indeed, the first two stages can already be lived by the African context of reading. That is the delimitation of the text. For example, many critics tend to isolate the parabola from its introduction. However, a practice of parables in Africa permits us to distinguish the “captatio benevolentiae” of the narrator from the introduction intrinsically bound to the story of the parable. In the same way, the textual criticism could not be only a search of the original; it permits us to live the adventure of a text in situation (s).

Besides, our conception of the ancestor, the faraway unifier and somehow mythical figure, leads to deal with the issue of the authenticity of the authors of the biblical texts with less passion. Indeed, in antique Orient and Africa, the herald of the good news is more anxious to be the link (even anonymously) of a tradition and a traditional inheritance than to claim his royalties. African literature, more oral than written, can also promote a literary analysis of the texts that is different from the one proposed by the classic critics, for example, with regard to the literary genres. Finally, the translation of Semitic or Greek texts into a local African language, on which the author insists with good reason, can help to make more concrete translation in western language.

Let us repeat. It is about intuitions that we have not yet systematized; we are supposed to master the systematic and educational approach that Rev. Dr. Mundele proposes to us. One should therefore not skip the stages. Besides, as presented, this approach certainly puts us in dialogue with the Word of God and also with the biblical scholars of other continents, as well as with the so-called profane disciplines. It promotes the emergence of a plural and rigorous reading of the Bible in an African context. Finally, it favours the necessary collaboration between theologians and biblical scholars in formulating a thought and a Christian praxis on the continent. Then, far from being a confinement, the African approach to the Bible is, on the contrary, an ecumenical venture, an adventure of getting together.

But to reach there, it needs to accept the bibliophagy to which the prophets Ezekiel and John invite us. The word to which the biblical scholars are witness is sweet and bitter (cf. Ap 10, 8-11). It is bitter because of its intellectual and existential requirements; sweet because of the fruits of understanding and conversion that it produces.

It behoves us to sincerely thank Rev. Dr. Albert Ngengi Mundele who has just attached a very strong methodological knot to the long thread of research on African readings of the Bible. We wish that students and researchers will accept the long, laborious, patient walk, but also fertile and fruitful venture, which the author proposes to us:

“The African approach to the Bible, as we have seen, seems boring. But I assure students/researchers that their interest will increase when they are already at work. The discovery of several aspects of the texts under study, their mutual relationship and their applicability in the contexts of African life, all give pleasure and satisfaction. With time, you will become specialists at doing it! (p.89).

Prof. Paulin Poucouta

Catholic institute of Yaoundé

[1] Cf. E. Mveng, L’Afrique dans l’Église, paroles d’un croyant, Paris, L’Harmattan 1985, 6 :. « affronter tous les obstacles, étudier la langue et les traditions bibliques, aller jusqu’aux sources, aux sources de la bible et aux sources de notre héritage culturel et permettre enfin à l’Eglise universelle de communier à notre expérience (…) ».

[2] Cf. APECA, Universalisme et mission dans la Bible. Universalism and Mission in the Bible, Nairobi, KatholischeJungscharOesterreichs / Catholic Biblical Centre for Africa and Madagascar (BICAM) 1993, 12 : en vue de « la promotion d’une étude scientifique de la Bible dans une perspective africaine »

[3] Commission Biblique Pontificale, L’interprétation de la Bible dans l’Église, Paris, Cerf, 2010, 4^è édition.

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