Fortress Press

"Mitzi Smith ably traces the arc of African American biblical interpretation. She extends that arc with her own contributions, interpreting passages from both Testaments. She reintroduces the reader to ​parables rooted in the atrocity of slavery, lays their brutality bare, and interprets them through the experience of African Americans. She does this while bringing postcolonial and social political theory to bear resulting in a text that critically reassess the utility of master/slave and kingdom rhetoric as religious​, Christian language, particularly in congregational contexts. Her work on the Levite's tortured and butchered low-status wife offers a powerful analysis of the dehumanizing​ "dismembering" that results in trafficking, domestic, sexual, and institutional violence."

“This book is a rich introduction to the history of the use of the Bible by and in relation to those of African descent, an excellent introduction to African American biblical hermeneutics, and an up to date survey of womanist interpretation. In lucid prose, it helps us to understand the Bible—with all its visionary and all its problematic texts—in a new light. You’ll know more about ancient history and about the importance of the Bible for Black Lives Matter after reading this book.”

“Mitzi Smith’s Insights from African American Interpretation, provides more than banal insights about this historic, vitalizing, and enduring discipline. Smith fixes with precision the debt all biblical scholars owe to generations of Black peoples who have wrestled with the meaning and power of the Bible—the “Talking Book” —for their lives. Her agile compendium of essays rigorously interrogates and nuances the fierce power, imagination, complexity, and resilience of African American Biblical Interpretation through the centuries. Erudite, absorbing, and disciplined, Smith’s analysis situates and problematizes major theoretical shifts in African American hermeneutical approaches within their discrete historical contexts and matrices, inclusive of postcolonial criticism and theories, womanist criticism and theorizing, critical race theory, and cultural studies approaches, among others. Must-read for specialists and experts interested in mapping and theorizing the transgressive and transformational power and iterations of race, culture, and community in sacred narratives.”