Interpreting Ezekiel's Ruach in an African Theological Context
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Boston University OpenBU http://open.bu.edu Theses & Dissertations STH Theses and Dissertations 2012-05-02 Interpreting Ezekiel’s Ruach in an African Theological Context: African Pneumatology as a Hermeneutical Lens for Understanding Ezekiel’s ‘Spirit’ Motif https://hdl.handle.net/2144/3730 Boston University BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY Dissertation INTERPRETING EZEKIEL’S RUACH IN AN AFRICAN THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT: AFRICAN PNEUMATOLOGY AS A HERMENEUTICAL LENS FOR UNDERSTANDING EZEKIEL’S ‘SPIRIT’ MOTIF By Samuel W. Muindi (M.Div., Oral Roberts University, 2003; Th.M., Duke University, 2005) Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Theology 2012 INTERPRETING EZEKIEL’S RUACH IN AN AFRICAN THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT: AFRICAN PNEUMATOLOGY AS A HERMENEUTICAL LENS FOR UNDERSTANDING EZEKIEL’S ‘SPIRIT’ MOTIF By Samuel W. Muindi APPROVED By First Reader________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Alejandro F. Botta Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible Second Reader________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Kirk Wegter-McNelly Assistant Professor of Theology CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......................................................................................................v ABSTRACT……..………………………………………….…………………............. ……vi Chapter I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………...…….........................1 1.1 Statement of the Problem 1.2 Significance of the Study 1.3 Study Outline 1.4 The Question of Method 1.5 Limitations of the Study II. EZEKIEL IN CONTEMPORARY SCHOLARSHIP…………………………….….…..29 2.1 Ezekiel: The Text 2.2 Ezekiel: The Socio- Historical Setting 2.3 Ezekiel: Literary and Thematic Designs 2.4 Ezekiel in Canonical Context 2.5 Ezekiel in Ancient Near Eastern Context 2.6 Summary IN EZEKIEL……………..……………..……………….62 רוח III. USAGE OF THE WORD Symbolism in the Hebrew Bible רוח Polysemous 3.1 in Ezekiel’s Symbolic Thinking רוח The 3.2 Symbolism: A Paradigm Shift רוח Ezekiel’s 3.3 Paradigm in Postexilic Israel and Beyond רוח Ezekiel’s 3.4 3.5 Summary iii IV. AFRICAN CHRISTIAN PNEUMATOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS...……………………………………………………….……….……...110 4.1 Introduction 4.2 African Christian Pneumatology 4.3 African Peoples 4.4 Spirituality 4.5 African Spirituality: A Nuanced Symbolism 4.6 The Case for African Biblical Interpretation 4.7 African Biblical Interpretation in Perspective 4.8 Biblical Inculturation: The Process 4.9 Summary V. AFRICAN PNEUMATOLOGY: A HERMENEUTICAL CONTEXT…………………………………………………………………….. ………......153 5.1 Ezekiel’s Socio- Historical Context and Dynamic Equivalents in African Context Motif and the African Reader: A Critical Encounter רוח Ezekiel’s 5.2 5.2.1 The African Reader 5.2.2 Hermeneutical Bridgeheads: Life Concerns and Interpretive Interests Motif: Inculturation Hermeneutical Explication רוח Ezekiel’s 5.3 5.3.1 Divine Abandonment 5.3.2 Hermeneutic of Liberation in the African Context 5.3.3 Hermeneutic of Liberation and the Everlasting Covenant 5.3.4 Dialectical Tension in Hermeneutic of Liberation 5.3.5 Hermeneutic of Future Hope Scholarship רוח African Pneumatology: Implications for Ezekiel’s 5.4 5.5 Summary VI. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….…………….….....209 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………….…........................215 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation is, in many ways, the outcome of the invaluable teaching that I received from all my professors at Boston University and also at Harvard Divinity School. However, my deepest gratitude and appreciation go to my First and Second readers, Professor Alejandro A. Botta and Professor Kirk Wegter-McNelly. Throughout the course of the Dissertation, they patiently and diligently guided me with invaluable suggestions and helpful critique which enabled me to accomplish my project. Also deserving gratitude are all those who made my project feasible. I am particularly indebted to the staff at Boston University School of Theology Library, Boston University Mugar Library, and Andover- Harvard Theological Library. In addition, the financial assistance that I received from Boston University School of Theology and from my home church is greatly appreciated. “May God make all grace abound to them, so that in all things and at all times, having all that they need, they will abound in every good work” (2 Cor 9: 8 paraphrase). Special gratitude is due to my family who not only braved the pain of my extended periods of absence from them but also encouraged me to finish my course successfully. May God who comforted them in their pain of loneliness not only refresh their hearts with joy at the completion Above all, “to our God and Father be glory .שלום of this project but also reward them with his forever and ever, Amen” (Phil 4: 20). v INTERPRETING EZEKIEL’S RUACH IN AN AFRICAN THEOLOGICAL CONTEXT: AFRICAN PNEUMATOLOGY AS A HERMENEUTICAL LENS FOR UNDERSTANDING EZEKIEL’S ‘SPIRIT’ MOTIF (Order No. ______________) Samuel W. Muindi Doctor of Theology Boston University School of Theology, 2012 Major Professor: Alejandro F. Botta, Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible. ABSTRACT Ezekiel has often been called ‘the prophet of the spirit’ due to his surpassing use of the whose symbolic range embraces meteorological phenomena, the anthropological ,רוח term principle of life, a theological principle of divine apparitions, or experiences of divine presence. motif to contemporary רוח However, hardly any study exists which relates Ezekiel’s רוח pneumatologies of the African biblical-faith communities which, akin to Ezekiel’s symbolism, portray a worldview of axiomatic divine- human interrelation in existential life. The motif conveys a polysemous symbolism רוח thesis of the present study is that the Ezekielian symbolism signifies a רוח which, nonetheless, accentuates an overarching leitmotiv; the paradigmatic shift, in ancient Israelite understanding of divine- human interrelation, from visible mediated through cultic rituals and confined to cultic כבוד־יהוה manifestations and experiences of shrines to unmediated manifestations and experiences of divine presence, neither confined to cultic shrines nor necessarily limited to particular guilds of the Israelite societal leadership. vi Moreover, the study posits that the pneumatological worldview of the African communities of symbolism and that the רוח biblical faith is an apt hermeneutical lens for understanding Ezekiel’s experiences of the Ezekielian exilic community prefigure dynamic equivalents in the pneumatological context of the African communities of biblical faith. The present study is symbolism utilizing African pneumatology as a רוח therefore an attempt to read Ezekiel’s hermeneutical lens. A reader- response theory of biblical interpretation, in which textual meaning emerges from the interaction between the text, read in its socio- historical setting, and the reader in his or her socio- cultural world, is employed utilizing biblical inculturation as a strategy which contextualizes the hermeneutical process by bringing the reader’s interpretive interests and life concerns into the task of biblical interpretation. The study begins with an exploratory study of the book of Ezekiel in its historical context in the Hebrew Bible. This entails a critical review of the Ezekielian corpus in contemporary symbolism in the Hebrew Bible in order to רוח scholarship as well as an exegetical analysis of in its socio-historical and canonical context. The study then examines רוח situate the Ezekiel’s critical features of African pneumatological worldview which constitute hermeneutical linkages, symbolism and African pneumatology. The study shows רוח or bridgeheads, between Ezekiel’s motif critically informs the African biblical-faith pneumatology while, as רוח that the Ezekielian a corollary, the African pneumatological worldview illumines and, indeed, serves as an apt symbolism. The hermeneutical import of רוח hermeneutical lens for understanding the Ezekielian symbolism, as understood in the African pneumatological context, is that רוח the Ezekielian divine presence is experientially feasible in existential life without the necessity of any ecclesial vii or ritual mediation. As the writer of the biblical book, Acts, affirms, “God … is not far from each one of us; for in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17: 27- 28). viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Statement of the Problem Ezekiel has often been referred to as “the prophet of the spirit” due to his surpassing use of whose nuanced symbolism is variously interpreted as wind, storm wind, breath of רוח the term life, the dynamic power of Yahweh, the human faculty of understanding, the human inward disposition of feeling and emotion or the moral will or the mind, the world of the divine, the agency of animation, the agency of inspiration, or the power of God at work in the created world.1 M. V. van Pelt and others observe that: has such a broad range of meanings, it is difficult to capture its semantic רוח Since breadth with a single term or phrase …what is invisible is difficult to define … the is known primarily by its effect on the visible world, by which we רוח invisible essence of is a term representing something רוח can then attempt to perceive its essence. Thus no less than fifty-two times. Idem, “The Prophet of the רוח Daniel I. Block reckons that Ezekiel uses the term 1 in the Book of Ezekiel,” Journal of Evangelical Theological Society 32 (1989), 28. In רוח Spirit: The Use of רוח comparison, the relatively larger prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, notably Isaiah and Jeremiah, use