The Ghost of Hosea in African American Interpretation

Abstract African American interpretation of the book of Hosea demonstrates the multiple priorities that define African American biblical scholarship and the diverse interactions between the book of Hosea and the needs of African American communities. African American liberationists have focused their attention on Hosea’s references to Egypt in the project of recovering black presence in the Bible. Renita Weems and other African American womanist and feminist scholars have critically analyzed the metaphors in Hosea, especially the marriage metaphor, to find ways of resisting the embedded harmful ideologies and create liberatory readings for African American women and other vulnerable communities. The study of Hosea by womanist scholars contributed directly to the formation of womanist hermeneutics which seek to empower readers to creatively and critically engage with the biblical texts. These scholars have also gestured toward an ecological reading of the book of Hosea. Allusions to Hosea by Toni Morrison in Beloved have clarified opportunities for an intercontextual reading between exilic/postexilic redactions of Hosea and African American communities as they address issues of hostile appropriation and traumatic memory after devastation. The range of interpretive projects discussed in this essay illustrate Hosea’s direct and indirect effects on African American life, and the dexterity of African American interpreters relates even troubling biblical texts to the well-being of their communities.