Abstract
Sugirtharajah's exploration of the rather complex relationship between the Bible and the cultural unit problematically called Asia is only partially successful. The author takes us on a journey from ancient to post-colonial times to show how eastern thoughts have contributed to early biblical texts and how Asian (Christian) interpreters have interacted with the Bible and its colonial legacies.
The book has seven chapters, which are bracketed between a useful introduction and a short conclusion. The first chapter (“Merchandise, Moralities, and Poetics of Aryans, Dravidians, and Israelites”), aims at situating the Bible in a broader landscape of religious history that includes Asia “as a potential contributor to the life and thought of the biblical people and their culture” (p. 14). In this sense, the author explores how some Buddhist and Indian ideas and stories might have traveled and influenced some writings in the biblical corpus. He describes some examples of how Tamil poetry may have influenced the Song of Songs, and how some biblical phrases and concepts may have Buddhist or Indian origins.
Chapter two (“Colonial Bureaucrats and the Search for Older Testaments”) focuses on the work of two nineteenth-century colonial officers, John Z. Holwell and Louis Jacolliot, who sought to show the world the impact of the East to the biblical thought world. Holwell and Jacolliot wanted to provide a counter narrative to some dearly held European and Christian views. In particular, they wanted to show how the Judaic and Hellenistic traditions—alongside European culture as a whole—may have borrowed from, and thus would be indebted to, other (mainly Eastern) traditions.
Chapter three (“Enlisting Christian Texts of Protest in the Empire”) is an analysis of the work of three Asians—Raja Rammohun Roy, Hong Xiuquan, and J.C. Kumarappa—and their use of the European missionaries' cherished text, not only to refute claims made by missionaries about the superiority of European morals and culture, but to recreate, to reinterpret, to reinvent/revise/replay/readapt/re-map and re-imagine the Bible from and for their own cultural and political needs.
Chapter four (“A Buddhist Ascetic and His Maverick Misreadings of the Bible”) highlights the life and teachings of a Sinhala nationalist, Angarika Dharmapala, and his tireless efforts to revise Buddhism in colonial Sri Lanka. The author argues that a nationalist reinterpretation of the Bible can mimic racist, prejudiced, and supremacist theologies when the native and jingoist interpreter is positioned in a superior relation of power to other religious and cultural minorities.
In Chapter five (“Paul the Roman in Asia”), Sugirtharajah tries to situate Paul as an ambiguous figure with regard to his position in the Roman Empire. The author also shows how Paul's writings have been used, abused, embraced, problematized, and rejected by Paul's Asian (Christian) interpreters, missionaries, and colonialists.
Chapter six (“Exegesis in Eastern Climes”) highlights the hermeneutical practices of marginalized Asian voices. This chapter may be one of the most successful ones in the volume. Postcolonial theory is invoked, but the author does not allow the obtuse theorizing to obscure the clarity of his argument. He shows how the Bible is reconfigured when it is placed in conversation with a variety of other texts. For the author, “a concentration on a single text may not facilitate either its appreciation or that of other texts” (p. 197). For Sugirtharajah it is important to see the Bible in all its ambiguity, and he suggests (more, it is his heartfelt plea) that Asian interpreters, reading the bible in their contexts, will “liberate themselves from the Bible in order to find meaning and solace beyond its brutal and offending tendencies” (p. 223).
The Bible and Asia will interest those who have read some of the author's previous daring works and who have some interest in, and/or curiosity about, postcolonial biblical analysis. Some of the materials, especially that pertaining to the interpretation of the bible in several Asian historical and political contexts, are fascinating and creative. The book is not a scholarly treatise, but is addressed to a general readership. As someone who is interested in postcolonial studies, and in diasporic interpretations of biblical materials, I was disappointed but also delighted. I was disappointed especially by the number of typos which I found distracting (see for example pp. 22, 28, 46, 47, 48, 51, 93). Sugirtharajah's treatment of Paul in chapter 5, moreover, is superficial at best. I was delighted by the author's use of little-known archival works and figures, and by the many suggested areas of research for scholars coming from the margins of the Euro/American centers of scholarship. The author's distance from and challenge to different groups of scholars (Asian or not) in their uncritical and orientalist reading of the bible is admirable.