About this item
Highlights
- Reading Howard Thurman introduces us to both Howard Washington Thurman and the art of interpretation.
- Author(s): Shively T J Smith
- 260 Pages
- Religion + Beliefs, Biblical Criticism & Interpretation
Description
About the Book
Reading Howard Thurman introduces Howard Thurman and the art of interpretation through the experience of a Black woman. Smith leverages womanist biblical sensibilities and commitments to open up the world of Thurman. She pays attention to the images that occupied Thurman as he made sense of life and notes their womanist forms as relevant for today.Book Synopsis
Reading Howard Thurman introduces us to both Howard Washington Thurman and the art of interpretation. It accomplishes both through the experience of a Black woman interpreter's journey with Thurman.
Womanist hermeneutics centers on family histories beginning with Black women's voices, communion with Spirit, forms of storytelling and story sharing, and the aesthetics of art, music, and nature as vehicles for interpreting the Bible. The commitments of womanist interpretation include community, life liberation, inclusion, and voice. In Reading Howard Thurman Shively T. J. Smith unfolds a conversation about and with Thurman. Smith explores Thurman's practices of interpreting his personal journey, spiritual experience, and community-building. He models interpreting life as our first resource for understanding what is meaningful, significant, and representative of the ties that bind, which transcend social barriers of nationality, internationality, race, and culture.
In the end, Smith's reading of Thurman through womanist eyes reveals "Thurmaneutics," his particular use of life to read the Bible. Reading Howard Thurman thus becomes a new primer for the study of biblical interpretation.