The Speaking God: Divine Revelation in Hebrews and Its Implications for African Biblical Hermeneutics

African Biblical Hermeneutics (ABH) is proliferating in and outside of Africa. ABH is concerned with making Bible interpretation Afrocentric rather than Eurocentric. ABH is not a monolith, however. There are various kinds of ABH approaches practiced by Africans. Many of the approaches that fall under ABH have a high view of Scripture while at the same time striving to be meaningful and sensitive to African contextual realities. Others are marked by the hermeneutics of suspicion, a low view of Scripture, and the trappings of the Enlightenment. I contend that these latter approaches of ABH have become both unfaithful to the text and irrelevant to the African context. In this article, I contend that it is possible to be faithful to the Scriptures and relevant to the African context by gleaning from the author of Hebrews. By exegeting Hebrews 1:1–2, 2:1–4, and 12:25, I argue that, by emulating the paradigm of the author of Hebrews, Christian Africans should read Scripture Christologically, with an eye on both African contextual realities and the authority of the Scriptures.