This volume celebrates the thirtieth anniversary of the Committee on Underrepresented Racial and Ethnic Minorities in the Profession (CUREMP), a committee within the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) dedicated to advancing underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in biblical studies. In reflecting on the contributions of the leading CUREMP members to biblical scholarship and envisioning the future of biblical studies, the book presents four pivotal presidential addresses followed by reflections of fellow minoritized scholars.

Part One features the 2010 presidential address by Vincent L. Wimbush, the first African-American president of the SBL. In reflecting on Frederick Douglass’s experience of enslavement in his first autobiography, Wimbush identifies three interpretive positions: the enslaving, the enslaved, and the runagate. Similar to Douglass’s experience of being once enslaved and then running away from it, Wimbush sees African Americans as runagates who have a “double consciousness” as interpreters to escape biblical dominance and engage in alternative scriptural traditions. Gay L. Byron, Andrew Mbuvi, Jacqueline M. Hidalgo, and Velma E. Love share their academic journeys influenced by Wimbush’s scholarship. Byron highlights how Wimbush’s work, which aims to construct a new mode of critical inquiry through the theorization of scripture and the founding of the Institute for Signifying Scripture, shaped her vision for remapping New Testament studies.

Part Two presents Fernando F. Segovia’s 2014 presidential address as the first president of Latino descent of the SBL. Segovia situates biblical scholarship in global geopolitical contexts and demands a theoretical framework to respond to global crises by engaging the visions of the Global North and the Global South. Tat-siong Benny Liew, Yak-hwee Tan, Abraham Smith, and Ekaputra Tupamahu emphasize the necessity of challenging epistemic hegemony in biblical studies and the responsibility of biblical scholars to respond to global issues in their contexts. In particular, Tupamahu reflects on the ignorance of Western biblical studies journals about the global COVID-19 pandemic and further calls for the duty to integrate and respond to global issues.

In his 2018 presidential address, Brian K. Blount addresses the experience of African Americans as “Othered” and disadvantaged. In biblical studies, “those who hold interpretive power establish those outside their circle as Other and assign to them the status out of their Otherness by becoming less like themselves and more like those holding such power (159).” He advocates for intercultural biblical hermeneutics and border-crossing pedagogies. Expanding on Blount’s vision, Gregory L. Cuéllar, Raj Nadella, and Angela N. Parker propose intercultural practices and implications for remapping biblical studies. Nadella, in particular, calls for decentering the hermeneutical center in the guild and suggests approaches for minoritized scholars to redefine their work to address the issues of marginalized communities.

The final section focuses on Gale A. Yee’s 2019 presidential address. Yee, the first SBL president of Asian descent, examines how her social locations—Chinese American ethnicity, lower-class origins, and female gender—significantly shaped her biblical interpretation. She introduces intersectionality as a hermeneutical prism for challenging inequality, which involves examining gender, race, class, etc., in constructing the domains of power. Leslie D. Callahan, Janette H. Ok, Ahida Calderón Pilarski, and Jin Young Choi discuss the applications, practices, and challenges of dismantling oppressive power structures in their respective contexts. Pilarski further elaborates on intersectionality and stance, two key elements in developing critical consciousness, and illustrates how decolonial thinking can contribute to the framework of intersectionality.

This book is highly recommended for minoritized biblical scholars, students, and general readers interested in biblical interpretation. It serves as a testimony to the profound impact of minoritized biblical scholarship, challenging the guild’s underlying presumptions, methodologies, and power dynamics that perpetuate oppression. It presents various methodologies and frameworks for critical interpretation, with helpful bibliographies at the end of each chapter for further learning. The volume would be enhanced by including responses from scholars from the dominant spheres. It would be an excellent illustration of the impact of the minoritized biblical scholarship in the guild, creating a two-way street for scholars in dominant and marginalized spheres to engage in border-crossing, as Blount suggests in his address.

Musa Dube’s election as the first SBL President of African descent in 2023 marked another milestone for CUREMP. We have reasons to believe that the minoritized biblical scholarship will continue to remap the field through innovative readings, methods, and directions.

Yichen Liang

Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL

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