Book Overview
The seventy essays of this volume go back to an international conference on ‘The interpretation of classical religious texts in contemporary Africa’, organized at Makerere University (Uganda) in November 2005. The essays are grouped in three parts – hermeneutical texts, classical texts and classical texts in dialogue – and they cover a variety of religious traditions and geographical areas.
The essays reflect the interpretation of classical religious texts among scholars in the partner institutions of the ‘Network of Theology And Religious Studies’, and as such the book presents a few glimpses into our classrooms in Cameroun, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Norway, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. However, as researchers and lecturers do not operate in a vacuum. Our interpretation reflects the efforts of an obviously much large scholarly community than just this network. We are part of a guild - or actually, many guilds – and by this conference volume we want to give back some of what we have received from others. Even more, we want to continue interacting with other researchers struggling with what it means to interpret classical religious texts in contemporary Africa.