June 14, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS – From the intellectual heart of the African American churches comes a pathbreaking commentary that provides biblical interpretation grounded in African American experience and concern.

In True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary cutting-edge scholarship calls into question many of the canons of traditional biblical research and highlights the role of the Bible in African American history, accenting themes of ethnicity, class, slavery, and African heritage as these play a role in the Christian odyssey of an emancipated people.

As the first African American commentary on the New Testament, True to Our Native Land addresses the unique historical, social, cultural, religious, and political realities that have shaped the African American experience of the Bible.

Written by leading African American scholars True to Our Native Land answers a call long voiced in African American churches and the academy alike, for a resource that can facilitate and empower a more passionate and critically informed engagement with the biblical legacy.

Contents:
General Articles
· Introduction by the Editors
· Slavery in the Early Church
· The Place and Role of Africa and African Imagery in the Bible
· Paul and African American Biblical Interpretation
· "We Will Make Our Own Future Text": An
Alternative Orientation to Interpretation
· Womanist Biblical Interpretation
· African American Preaching and the Bible
· African American Art and Biblical Interpretation

Commentary on the Books of the New Testament, General Editor: Brian K. Blount, President of Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA, and author of Can I Get A Witness? Reading Revelation through African American Culture (2005) and Cultural Interpretation: Reorientating New Testament Criticism (1995).

Associate Editors: Cain Hope Felder, Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at the School of Divinity, Howard University, Washington, DC, and author of Race, Racism, and The Biblical Narratives (Fortress Press, 2002), and editor of the Original African Heritage Study Bible (1993) and Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation (Fortress Press, 1991). Clarice J. Martin, Jean Picker Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Colgate University, and author of numerous articles on New Testament writings, ancient slavery, preaching in the contemporary church, and womanist biblical interpretation, including "The Eyes Have It: Slavery in the Communities of Christ-Believers" in Christian Origins, vol. 1 of A People's History of Early Christianity (Fortress Press, 2005), and "Polishing the Unclouded Mirror: A Womanist Reading of Revelation 18:13" in From Every People and Nation: The Book of Revelation in Intercultural Perspective (Fortress Press, 2005). Emerson B. Powery, Associate Professor of New Testament at Lee University, Cleveland, TN, and author of The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary (2005) and Jesus Reads Scripture: The Function of Jesus' Use of Scripture in the Synoptic Gospels (2002), and coeditor with Terry Cross of The Spirit and the Mind: Essays in Informed Pentecostalism (2000).

Contributors: Brad R. Braxton, Michael Joseph Brown, Gay L. Byron, Allen Dwight Callahan, Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder, Larry George, Thomas L. Hoyt Jr., Cleophus J. LaRue, Lloyd A. Lewis, James Earl Massey, Guy Nave, James A. Noel, Rodney S. Sadler Jr., Boykin Sanders, Thomas B. Slater, Abraham Smith, Mitzi J. Smith, Raquel St. Clair, Manya A. Stubbs, Demetrius K. Williams, and Vincent L. Wimbush.

True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary, Edited by Brian K. Blount, Format: Hardcover 586 pages 7 x 9.25 inches, Item No: 978-0-8006-3421-6, Price: $29.00, Publisher: Fortress Press.

To order True to Our Native Land please call Fortress Press at 1-800-328-4648 or visit the Web site at http://www.fortresspress.com/.

Fortress Press