The Talking Book: African Americans and the BibleYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 295 pages A striking narrative of the Bible’s central role in African-American history from the early days of slavery to the present The Talking Book casts the Bible as the central character in a vivid portrait of black America, tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists. The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature. The author tells a moving story of a biblically informed African-American culture, identifying four major biblical images—Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel. He brings these themes to life in a unique African-American history that grows from the harsh experience of slavery into a rich culture that endures as one of the most important forces of twenty-first-century America. |
From inside the book
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... claim to expertise in biblical studies, Americanists and ethnomusicologists, art historians and literary critics may read me as a dilettante. So be it. The French psycho- analyst Jacques Lacan once wrote in defense of his own eclectic ...
... claims , " I have not been able to read any book , nor any reading whatever , but such as contain the word of God . " 46 African - American claims to miraculous literacy continued into the nineteenth century . George Washington Dupree ...
... them.5 It was on the basis of biblical claims that the erstwhile master of John Jea, a slave in eighteenth-century Dutch New York manumitted following his public confession of the Christian faith , sought to the poison book 23.
... claiming that all Africans were the children of Cain was to claim every African was the seed of the first fratricide . This claim is “a stupid saying,” writes the abolitionist clergyman James Pennington in 26 THE POISON BOOK.
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Contents
1 | |
21 | |
3 The Good Book | 41 |
4 Exile | 49 |
5 Exodus | 83 |
6 Ethiopia | 138 |
7 Emmanuel | 185 |
Postscript | 240 |
Notes | 247 |
275 | |
284 | |