The Concept of Philosophy in Post-Apartheid Western Historical Overviews of South African Old Testament Scholarship

Abstract

This article seeks to clarify the concept of “philosophy” as it appeared within popular overviews of South African Old Testament scholarship published in the post-apartheid era. After providing a typology of related research, the discussion proceeds with the identification of the words “philosophy”/“philosophical” in the associated colonialist scholarly discourses. The latter part involves a brief classification, commentary and critique of the meta-philosophical assumptions supervening on the associated intra- and cross-disciplinary contexts. “The secret of theory is that truth does not exist.”

Keywords

• Old Testament
• South African perspectives
• histories of interpretation
• post-apartheid era
• meta-philosophy