- Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
- Associate Professor, Religion and Cultureedit
Research Interests:
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern... more
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age. Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.
Research Interests: African Studies, Theology, Hebrew Bible, Race and Ethnicity, Biblical Studies, and 13 moreEthnic and Racial Studies, Negotiation, Music and identity, Ancient Near East, Nubian-Egyptian Relations, Biblical Interpretation, Biblical Exegesis, Ancient Nubia, Ancient Near Eastern History, Nubian studies, Biblical Hermeneutics, Ethnic Group, and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
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The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the... more
The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the historical context from which the book derives. While it remains true that careful historical analysis has advanced our understanding of the world in which the seer of Patmos lived and wrote, a strictly contemporary historical focus threatens to confine the significance of this apocalyptic symbol to the environs of the first century. In seeking to recover the theological and contemporary relevance of this symbol as a critique of imperial ambitions, this thesis argues for a reading strategy which locates the Book of Revelation foremost in the context of "canon." Such a reading stance illuminates the meaning of the symbolic beast in relationship to the deep intertextual and theological history which the final book of the Bible shares with the cano...
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It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Christian faith and practice in a myriad of ways, including giving rise to a vibrant Protestant missiology. Yet, what remains relatively... more
It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Christian faith and practice in a myriad of ways, including giving rise to a vibrant Protestant missiology. Yet, what remains relatively unexplored in the context of the Reformation and Christian mission is the impact of Reformation political theology on empire-building; specifically, the connection between Protestant mission and the extension of European political hegemony over distant lands, which began in the early modern period. This study attempts to show first that the Reformation reframing of the relationship between church and state failed to challenge the “theology of empire” inherent in Roman Catholicism, and second, that Protestant imperial expansion was equally buttressed by a religious ideology which assumed an equivalence between colonization and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. In the case of Christian expansion into the Americas both before and after the Reformation, t...
Research Interests: History, Indigenous Studies, Luther, Early Christianity, Christian Missions, and 15 moreProtestantism, Separation of Church and State, Roman Empire, Medieval Christianity, Imperialism, Mission, Missionary, American Indian, Church and State, Protestant Reformation, Relations between Church and State, Medieval and Early Modern Christianity, Church and State in Massachusetts Bay Colony, Natives, and Indigenous
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Research Interests: History and Ethnic Group
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Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin’s scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and... more
Racial ideas which developed in the modern west were forged with reference to a Christian worldview and informed by the Bible, particularly the Old Testament. Up until Darwin’s scientific reframing of the origins debate, European and American race scientists were fundamentally Christian in their orientation. This paper outlines how interpretations of the Hebrew Bible within this Christian Weltanschauung facilitated the development and articulation of racial theories which burgeoned in western intellectual discourse up to and during the 19th century. The book of Genesis was a particular seedbed for identity politics as the origin stories of the Hebrew Bible were plundered in service of articulating a racial hierarchy which justified both the place of Europeans at the pinnacle of divine creation and the denigration, bestialization, and enslavement of Africans as the worst of human filiation. That the racial ethos of the period dictated both the questions exegetes posed and the conclus...
Research Interests: Race and Racism, Hebrew Bible, History of Anthropology, Slavery, Race and Ethnicity, and 12 moreOld Testament, Ethnic Identity, Nineteenth Century, Religions, Ethos, Biblical Hermeneutics, Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Ethnicity and Identity Politics, Racial Theory, Hamitic Hypothesis, נחש Nachash, and Preadamites
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
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This article discussion how Cushites are represented in the Hebrew Bible as opposed to how modern interpreters tend to portray them.
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This article discusses representation of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.
Research Interests: Ancient History, Hebrew Bible, Biblical Studies, Nubian-Egyptian Relations, Biblical Interpretation, and 4 moreEthnicity, Kushite Archaeology, history of architecture, history of science and technology, politics of historic preservation, ethnicity and nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe, history , memory, and the built environment, and Grammar of Kambata with Comparative Notes on the Highland East Cushitic Language Groups
It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Christian faith and practice in a myriad of ways, including giving rise to a vibrant Protestant missiology. Yet, what remains relatively... more
It is certainly more than a truism to say that Protestant Reformation theology has impacted Christian faith and practice in a myriad of ways, including giving rise to a vibrant Protestant missiology. Yet, what remains relatively unexplored in the context of the Reformation and Christian mission is the impact of Reformation political theology on empire-building; specifically, the connection between Protestant mission and the extension of European political hegemony over distant lands, which began in the early modern period. This study attempts to show first that the Reformation reframing of the relationship between church and state failed to challenge the " theology of empire " inherent in Roman Catholicism, and second, that Protestant imperial expansion was equally buttressed by a religious ideology which assumed an equivalence between colonization and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. In the case of Christian expansion into the Americas both before and after the Reformation, the results were disastrous for indigenous peoples and their cultures. This assessment calls for a rethinking of Christianity's historical relationship to empire, its modes of propagation in the modern period, and the nature of its mission in the twenty-first century.
Research Interests:
The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the... more
The academic study of the seven-headed sea beast symbolism in the Apocalypse has proceeded along contemporary historical lines since the modern period. This approach seeks to locate the meaning of this symbolic reference within the historical context from which the book derives. While it remains true that careful historical analysis has advanced our understanding of the world in which the seer of Patmos lived and wrote, a strictly contemporary historical focus threatens to confine the significance of this apocalyptic symbol to the environs of the first century. In seeking to recover the theological and contemporary relevance of this symbol as a critique of imperial ambitions, this thesis argues for a reading strategy which locates the Book of Revelation foremost in the context of "canon." Such a reading stance illuminates the meaning of the symbolic beast in relationship to the deep intertextual and theological history which the final book of the Bible shares with the canonical corpus of Christian Scriptures.
Research Interests:
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of African descent which are largely a feature of the modern... more
Cushites in the Hebrew Bible offers a reassessment of Cushite
ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a
counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of
African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age.
Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize
unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called
Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through
a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity
construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray
both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the
Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the
biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of
the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning
representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.
ethnographic representations in the biblical literature as a
counterpoint to misconceptions about Africa and people of
African descent which are largely a feature of the modern age.
Whereas current interpretations have tended to emphasize
unfavourable portraits of the people biblical writers called
Cushites, Kevin Burrell illuminates the biblical perspective through
a comparative assessment of ancient and modern forms of identity
construction. Past and present modes of defining difference betray
both similarities and differences to ethnic representations in the
Hebrew Bible, providing important contexts for understanding the
biblical view. This book contributes to a clearer understanding of
the theological, historical, and ethnic dynamics underpinning
representations of Cushites in the Hebrew Bible.