Living in Different Worlds Simultaneously

In a distinguished academic career spanning four decades, South African scholar Louis C. Jonker has made remarkable contributions to Old Testament/Hebrew Bible studies, hermeneutics, and biblical interpretation. Jonker’s work straddles African and Western/European/North American research circles, exploring original historical and authorial context, and also the situation and context of the reader. Jonker has argued that these modes are not contradictory or competing, but that Western and African hermeneutics have something to teach each other. His sensitivity to both author and reader’s contexts and complex identities has borne fruit, most notably in his nuanced studies of the books of Chronicles. The aim of this volume is twofold: 1) to advance scholarship at the intersection of Western and African hermeneutical approaches, and 2) to honor the unique contributions of Louis Jonker to many subfields and scholarly conversations across decades and continents. The essays in this volume, written by Jonker’s students and colleagues in Africa, Europe, and North America, pertain to hermeneutics and interpretive methods, and respond in various ways to Jonker’s invitation to analyze the contexts of composition and reception. This fitting tribute to a one-in-a-generation scholar constitutes a fresh advancement of scholarship in its own right.