Personal uprightness as the just cause in Psalm 17: Afrocentric reflections

Abstract

This essay situates study of the psalter within an African interpretational modality. Given the fact that western scholarship has dominated if not prescribed approaches to biblical texts demonstrable from the absence of African motifs in research by African students until recent times, this new opportunity for other perspectives invites contributions. As such the analysis of Psalm 17 here is such a contribution utilising a real-life African situation to show how that context can uniquely assist to illuminate biblical texts. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The essay connotes social-justice and political African constructs in conversation with biblical analysis of an ancient Hebrew text. Practical and systematic theology are implied as well as African cultural studies with a decolonial agenda.

Keywords

• justice
• uprightness
• afrocentric
• equity
• fairness