Voices from the Margin: Interpreting the Bible in the Third World

A collection of essays from around the world that interpret particular biblical texts from a liberationist and pluralist perspective. [Full Review]

Having attended the review panel session on this book at the 2006 SBL meeting in Washington D.C., I am delighted to be able to add my voice of appreciation and to reflect on its contribution. I will do so by focusing on both the frame provided by the editor, R. S. Sugirtharajah, and on the pictures in-between. The Frame: Part 1 In his introduction, subtitled “Still at the Margins,” Sugirtharajah begins by noting the various changes since the publication of the first and second editions of Voices from the Margin (1991 and 1995). The first change he notes is from the perspective of mainstream biblical scholarship. “Not much” has changed, he argues (1). Mainstream biblical interpretation is still “biblical interpretation,” with the margins being given their geographical region as adjectival modifiers, such as “African biblical scholarship.” Sugirtharajah then goes on at more length, appropriately so, to discuss the changes that have taken place on the Third World margins. First, the margins are now more “crowded” and “complicated” (3). [Full Review]