Biblical Commentaries and Glosses and Their Effect upon the Black Slave, Blacks in America and African Americans

Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Theology - Biblical Theology, grade: 4.0, , language: English, abstract: This paper researches the effect of biblical commentary and glosses on the African American identity. This paper aims to illustrate the change in African American response throughout history to commentaries and glosses; the more literate and sophisticated African Americans become in responding to biblical texts, the less likely they (we) are to build identity around negative stereotypes which may be perpetuated by commentaries or glosses. We know from commentaries such as “A Reply to a Pamphlet, Entitled ‘Bondage, a Moral Institution Sanctioned by the Scriptures And the Savior, &c. &s. So Far As it Attacks the Principles of Expulsion, With No Defence However of Abolitionism’ ” that biblical commentary was used to validate black slavery; we know that from the ancient commentary the Talmud (written before the common era, B.C.E) that slavery for one particular race has never been prescribed and from a peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Negro Education that black slaves were often allowed to read the Bible but were told what to teach from and their sermons usually revolved around keeping the slaves meek. This is now considered treachery in the African American community. The negative implications of biblical commentaries have been explored, but what we do not know is how or if African Americans managed to build positive identity traits through the use of commentaries and glosses. A historical/chronological approach is used to the thesis so the reader can see the progression of African American identity and analysis of biblical commentaries.