Synopses & Reviews
What do Christians do with the Bible? How do theyand#249;individually and collectivelyand#249;interact with the sacred texts? Why does this engagement shift so drastically among and between social, historical, religious, and institutional contexts? Such questions are addressed in a most enlightening, engaging, and original way in
The Social Life of Scriptures.Contributors offer a collection of closely analyzed and carefully conducted ethnographic and historical case studies, covering a range of geographic, theological, and cultural territory, including: American evangelicals and charismatics; Jamaican Rastafarians; evangelical and Catholic Mayans; Northern Irish charismatics; Nigerian Anglicans; and Chinese evangelicals in the United States.
The Social Life of Scriptures is the first book to present an eclectic, cross-cultural, and comparative investigation of Bible use. Moreover, it models an important movement to outline a framework for how scriptures are implicated in organizing social structures and meanings, with specific foci on gender, ethnicity, agency, and power.
Review
"Bielo's collection is a must for all serious students of Christianity. It puts forth such a simple idea, we have to wonder why it's taken so long for anthropologists to get it: we cannot understand Christianity without understanding 'the social life of Scriptures.' In their detailed analyses, the contributors here make a convincing case."Matthew Engelke, London School of Economics
Synopsis
The Social Life of Scriptures is the first book to present an eclectic, cross-cultural, and comparative investigation of Bible use. It models an important movement to outline a framework for how scriptures are implicated in organizing social structures and meanings, with specific focis on gender, ethnicity, agency, and power.
Synopsis
What do Christians do with the Bible? How do they--individually and collectively--interact with the sacred texts? Why does this engagement shift so drastically among and between social, historical, religious, and institutional contexts? Such questions are addressed in a most enlightening, engaging, and original way in
The Social Life of Scriptures.Contributors offer a collection of closely analyzed and carefully conducted ethnographic and historical case studies, covering a range of geographic, theological, and cultural territory, including: American evangelicals and charismatics; Jamaican Rastafarians; evangelical and Catholic Mayans; Northern Irish charismatics; Nigerian Anglicans; and Chinese evangelicals in the United States.
The Social Life of Scriptures is the first book to present an eclectic, cross-cultural, and comparative investigation of Bible use. Moreover, it models an important movement to outline a framework for how scriptures are implicated in organizing social structures and meanings, with specific foci on gender, ethnicity, agency, and power.
About the Author
James S. Bielo is a visiting assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Miami University in Ohio.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Encountering Biblicism
The Trouble with Good News
"In the Beginning"
The Man is the Head"
The Word of God and "Our Words"
How Q'eqchi'-Maya Catholics Become Legitimate Interpreters of the Bible
"We Are Anglicans, They Are the Church of England"
Chinese American Christian Women of New England
The Bones Restored to Life:
Textual Ideology, Textual Practice
Revolve, the Biblezine
Understanding the Bible's Influence
The Social Life of the Bible