This research aims at examining biblical hermeneutics in Bembaland, Zambia. Home to 4.8 million people, 50%-75% of whom are nominally Christian and 44% Catholic, with literacy levels at 61.4%, this thesis explores the interplay of orality and scribality in the Bembaland experiences of biblical hermeneutics. The terminus a quo of this thesis is that the shift in preferred medium from orality to scribablity in Bembaland affected not only hermeneutical understandings of the Bible, but also the broader social praxis. This can be identified in changed ways both of thinking and the derivation of meaning, both in terms of heteroglossal interpretation and the patterning and understanding of authority. The terminus ad quem of the thesis is that rather than hold orality and textuality in an antithetical binarism, it is more fruitful to pursue a negotiated and hybrid approach which holds oral and textual poetics in constructive symbiosis. In making this argument, rather than calling in the hermeneutical bulldozer of one single method, our approach is to unlock the Bemba experiences using a bricolage of analytical tools which have included contextual fieldwork, postcolonial critique, communication theory, spatial theory and linguistic analysis. In particular, the argumentation is alert first to the deconstruction of textual interpretations authored by the dominant and literate elite; secondly, the silencing of colonized 'others' as subjects of their own history; thirdly, the emancipation of misued biblical passages through hermeneutics of suspicion, retrieval, restoration and transformation. As a worked example, I have proposed a negotiated, oral-textual and hybrid hermeneutics of Rom 13:1-7. The outcomes of the 'oral-scribal' analysis undertaken partially echo McLuhan's famous phrase, 'The medium is the message.' The evidence suggests that there has been a tectonic shift in the biblical hermeneutics of Bembaland. Succinctly, this may be characterised principally by the move from oral/aural to chirographical/typographical media management in which communication and space were utilised as a means of exerting power and control. In the particular Bemba context of << Ubufumu e busosa >> - 'Royalty is constituted by speech' the effect is seismic since tribal authority has hitherto been constituted by the spoken rather than the written word. Thus informed, the research proposes a rebalancing of this destabilizing shift using two metaphors. Firstly, hearing/reading the word under an African tree as << Teleela Mulumbe >> ['Hear the news'} has the potential to open up what James Maxey has referred to as the oral ethos of the Bible in a context that is still characterised by residual orality; secondly, hearing/reading the word in Terra Nullius, ['unclaimed land'] where both oral/textual media hybridity and community hybridity are the catchwords. In like manner, this allows for border-crossing or 'transgressive hermeneutics' that is meta-gendered and trans-ethnic in its redemptive power.

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the value of proper attention to ‘story structure’ in the study of Acts. The thesis works towards this aim in three stages. First, in chapters 1 and 2, the thesis develops the methodological framework of story structure which is proposed to consist of two interacting components: (top down) macro-structure which places an individual episode within the governing context of the story layers to which it contributes, and (bottom up) the way the meaning of an individual episode is shaped from and by its narrative clauses. Second, chapters 3-5 use the methodology of chapters 1-2 to support and guide a close reading of the narrative arc of the twelve apostles as Luke narrates their evolving story in Acts 1–12. This reading is focused by a question, appropriate to the narrative properties of Luke-Acts, about the goals of the Twelve (disclosed primarily in Luke 22:14-30 and Acts 1:1-12) and the steps taken by the Twelve to actualise those goals. Attention to the story structure of Acts 1–12 reveals that the narrative arc of the Twelve complies with Aristotle’s preferred ‘tragic’ shape, pivoting from initial rising success to ultimate failure around the turning point of 6:1-7, which discloses that the downfall of the Twelve is caused by their over-emphasis of the mission to Jerusalem and their ‘tragic flaw’ of hubris. Third, chapter 6 considers the implications of the methodology and application stages of chapters 1-5 for the contested debate over the restoration of the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6) and concludes against those like Jervell who see a completed restoration of Israel in Acts. The thesis then ends by considering implications of the research for wider exegetical issues such as the genre, plot and purpose of Acts.

The Acts of the Apostles can fruitfully be studied as persuasive narrative. This thesis develops and uses a new method to investigate what we can learn from the way Acts has been constructed about the persuasive influence the text would have exerted on its early audiences. Acts is a narrative and purposes suggested for it often involve persuasion. The proposed method for addressing the persuasiveness of narrative is a development of both narrative criticism, which has traditionally neglected persuasion, and rhetorical criticism, which is based on persuasive techniques in speeches, whereas rather different techniques are employed in narrative. The method employs a taxonomy of techniques of persuasion relevant to narrative. Speeches, events and asides each contribute. A character’s influence depends on trust – whether they are accredited or discredited. Respect and empathy have different persuasive effects. Before considering Acts, the method is demonstrated by applying it to: Philo’s Embassy to Gaius, which is more overtly polemical than Acts; Josephus’s Jewish War, addressing a more hostile audience than Acts; the Letter of Aristeas, which is more of an encomium than Acts; and Joseph and Aseneth, with a more overt ‘journey of discovery’ than Acts. In Acts, accrediting and discrediting are provided in many ways, most forcefully through the Holy Spirit. Ananias and Sapphira provide a cautionary tale. The hearer accompanies Peter on his ‘journey of discovery’ about Gentiles. The approach of persuading by gentle steps suggests that some among the implied audience were unconvinced about mission to Gentiles and about Paul. Overall, the persuasiveness of Acts is not unsuitable for presentation to interested outsiders alongside believers. Persuasiveness is evident, especially in favour of the Jesus movement, Gentile mission and Paul. This research proposes a method and, by using it, shows how Acts can, itself, be considered an act of persuasion.

This thesis will answer, “How do ethnic labels function in the Gospel of John?” In order to answer this question properly, this thesis draws on social-scientific theories on ethnic groups, deviancy, and labeling. The primary examples of ethnic labeling for this thesis are John 4:9 and 8:48. In each instance, members from “the Jews” (ʼΙουδαῖοι) and “Samaritans” label Jesus as a member of each other’s group. The Gospel of John’s dual ethnic labeling of Jesus participates in a history of discourse between “the Jews” and “Samaritans.” Both people groups adhere to an “us” versus “them” mentality because they both identify themselves as Israelites while rejecting the other group’s claim to that identity. The parameters of the discourse are determined by not only how each ethnic group identifies themselves but particularly how they construct the category for the other’s group. Once the parameters of discourse are in place, then we can address the function of ethnic labels in the Gospel of John. On both occasions Jesus is labeled because he deviates from what are deemed to be acceptable practices as a member of “the Jews.” The function of Jesus’s dual ethnic labeling in the Gospel of John is to establish a new pattern of practices and categories for the “children of God” who are a trans-ethnic group united as a fictive-kinship and who are embedded within the Judean ethnic group’s culture and traditions. The Johannine Jesus is portrayed as “the Jews’” Messiah (1:45; 20:31), who brings “salvation from the Jews” (4:22), and who is “the savior of the world” (4:42). The Gospel of John presents Jesus as broadening the more restrictive boundaries within “his own people” (1:11) in order to “draw all people to myself” (12:32).