Networking

CollECT: Colloquium on Epistemology, Context, and Text, in Biblical Interpretation

CollECT is a research group linked to Faculty of theology, diaconia and leadership studies at VID Specialized University (Stavanger, Norway), but with members also from other universities and university colleges in Scandinavia and Africa. Professor Knut Holter is leader of CollECT (contact).

CollECT’s overall aim is to create an environment for innovative biblical studies, with a particular focus on the roles different epistemologies and interpretive contexts play both in popular and critical biblical interpretation. As such the research promoted by the group negotiates with crucial currents in contemporary biblical, cultural and literary studies.

Most members of CollECT approach their research material from explicitly African perspectives, identifying and analyzing experiences and concerns of African popular and critical biblical interpretation. Other members approach questions of epistemology and context in relation to texts from other contextual perspectives or theorize about epistemology and contextuality in relation to biblical interpretation.

Due to its international and interinstitutional membership, CollECT mainly works through digital platforms, convening members to various work communities:

  • Seminars – where all group members come together to discuss research texts and research strategies.
  • Postdoc cluster – for members in a postdoctoral phase of their career, focusing on research and other strategies for promotion to a full professorship.
  • Project clusters – where some members collaborate in defined projects.
  • Ad-hoc clusters – where some members collaborate for a limited time and for a specific purpose, such as developing funding applications.

CollECT MEMBERS

Research adviser Anja Nieuwenhuis

…works in VID’s Division of Research Administration

Prof Anna Rebecca Solevåg

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing research on Bible and migration

Dr Beth Elness-Hanson

…of Johannelund School of Theology, Uppsala, Sweden, coming from USA, doing research in African biblical interpretation from epistemological perspectives

Dr Funlola Olojede

…of Stellenbosch University, South Africa, doing research on African feminist approaches to the Old Testament

Dr Helen Nambalirwa

…of Makerere University, Uganda, doing research on African interpretive strategies to the Bible

Th.M. Helge Ask

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, is developing a PhD project

Dr Hoyce Mbowe

…of Mindolo Ecumenical Foundation, Zambia, coming from Tanzania, doing research on feminist interpretation of the Bible in Africa

Dr Jean de Dieu Rafalimanana

…of Lutheran Graduate School of Theology, Madagascar, doing research on Malagasy, interpretive strategies to the New Testament

Prof Jean Koulagna

…of Institut al Mowafaka, Morocco, coming from Cameroun, doing research on African biblical hermeneutics

Research fellow Dr Joanna Bauer

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing a PhD project on the Old Greek version of Isaiah

Prof Jostein Ådna

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing research in biblical theology

PhD student Rev Kambere Bolingo

…of the University of South Africa, coming from DR Congo, doing a PhD on Nehemiah 5 in relation to rebuilding society in DRC mineral conflict contexts

Research fellow / PhD student Karin Hakalax

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing a PhD project on ways divine fury is experienced and expressed by the גבר in biblical lament

PhD student Rev Kjersti Wee

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing a PhD project on Malagasy popular
readings of Proverbs 31

Prof Knut Holter

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing research on colonial and contemporary interpretive strategies to the Bible in Africa

Prof Kristin Joachimsen

…of MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Oslo, Norway, working on Bible and migration from a postcolonial perspective

Prof Marta Høyland Lavik

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing research on existential interpretations of the Bible in Africa

PhD student Rev Medhat Youssef

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, coming from Egypt, doing a PhD on the portrayal of Egypt in Isaiah 19

Dr Misgana Mathewos

…of Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, where he is President of the institution and does research in Old Testament studies

Head librarian Nina Sundnes Drønen

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, leader of the VID Campus Library

Dr Ntozakhe Cezula

…of Stellenbosch University, South Africa, doing research on Bible and
reconstruction hermeneutics

Dr Olivier Randrianjaka

…of Lutheran Graduate School of Theology, Madagascar, doing research on Malagasy, interpretive strategies to the Old Testament

PhD student Oulia Makkonen

…of Uppsala Universitet, Sweden, coming from Togo, doing a PhD project on the Bible in African cinema

PhD student Rev Tarekegn Abate

…of VID Stavanger, Norway, coming from Ethiopia, doing a PhD project on  ‘discerning the body’ in 1. Corinthians 11:29

Dr Tina Dykesteen Nilsen

… of VID Stavanger, Norway, doing research on ecological biblical
interpretation in Africa and beyond

Dr Zephania Shila Nkesela

…of Central Diocese, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, doing
research on African, interpretive strategies to the Old Testament

PUBLICATIONS BY CollECT MEMBERS 2020

  • Cezula, Ntozakhe: “Two Poles of the Exodus: Conquest as the Oppressive Pole in Joshua 6:21.” In Jacques van Ruiten & Koert van Bekkum (eds.), Violence in the Hebrew Bible: Between Text and Reception. Leiden: Brill (2020), 177-189.

  • Cezula, Ntozakhe & Leepo Medise: “The ‘empty land’ myth: A biblical and socio-historical exploration,” Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae 46/2 (2020), 21 pp.

  • Elness-Hanson, Beth E.: “Hannah’s Magnificat as a Leadership Principle,” Ingång 23 (2020), 23-32.

  • Elness-Hanson, Beth E.: “YHWH in the KiMaasai Bible.” In Knut Holter & Lemburis Justo (eds.), Maasai Encounters with the Bible. Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2020, 121-145.

  • Holter, Knut: “Context of a contextual project on the Maasai and the Bible.” In Knut Holter & Justo Lemburis (eds.), Maasai Encounters with the Bible. Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2020, 13-23.

  • Holter, Knut: “Doing biblical studies in poverty contexts: Some African experiences and concerns.” In Markus Zehnder & Hallvard Hagelia: The Bible and Money: Economy and Socioeconomic Ethics in the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2020, 378-392.

  • Holter, Knut: “Interpretive context matters: Isaiah and the African context in African study bibles.” In Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Isaiah. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020, 655-669.

  • Holter, Knut.: “Isak – the son of the rainmaker – and the Bible: An example of resistance hermeneutics in Zululand around 1870,” Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 166 (2020), 41-51.

  • Holter, Knut: “The Maasai and the ancient Israelites: Religio-cultural parallels.” In Knut Holter & Lemburis Justo (eds.): Maasai Encounters with the Bible. Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2020, 107-119.

  • Holter, Knut & Lemburis Justo (eds.): Maasai Encounters with the Bible. Nairobi: Acton Publishers 2020.

  • Joachimsen, Kristin: “Cohesion, distribution and hybrid identity in Nehemiah 5.” In Markus Zehnder & Hallvard Hagelia (eds.): The Bible and Money: Economy and Socioeconomic Ethics in the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2020, 115-128.

  • Joachimsen, Kristin: “Jezebel as voiced by others in 1 and 2 Kings,” Die Welt des Orients 50 (2020), 216-233.

  • Joachimsen, Kristin: “The Book of Isaiah: Persian/Hellenistic Background.” In Lena-Sofia Tiemeyer (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Isaiah. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020, 176-197.

  • Lavik, Marta Høyland: “Are the Kushites disparaged in Isaiah 18? Kush applied as a literary motif in the Hebrew Bible.” In Allis Ogden Bellis (ed.): Jerusalem’s Survival, Sennacherib’s Departure, and the Kushite Role in 701 BCE An Examination of Henry Aubin’s Rescue of Jerusalem. Piscataway: Gorgias Press 2020, 19-54.

  • Lavik, Marta Høyland; Gripsrud, Birgitta Haga; Ramvi, Ellen: “How do migrant nursing home staff relate to religion in their work with patients who are approaching death?,” Journal of Holistic Nursing 2020, 16 pp.

  • Nilsen, Tina Dykesteen: “Ecology and Economy of Shmita (Exod. 23.10–11; Lev. 25.1–7; Deut. 15.1–6): Biblical Texts and Contemporary Judaism.” In Markus Zehnder & Hallvard Hagelia (eds.): The Bible and Money: Economy and Socioeconomic Ethics in the Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press 2020, 314-336.

  • Nilsen, Tina Dykesteen: “Green Goals: The SDGs in Ecological Hermeneutics,” Biblical Interpretation, 2020).

  • Olojede, Funlola, “Toward an African Feminist Ethics and the Book of Proverbs.” In Suzanne Scholz (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Approaches to the Hebrew Bible. 2020.

  • Olojede, Funlola, “Numbered with the transgressors: The story of the daughters of Zelophehad as retold by Noah.” In L. Juliana Claassens, Christl M. Maier, and Funlola Olojede (eds.): Transgression and Transformation: Feminist, Postcolonial and Queer Biblical Interpretation as Creative Interventions. London: Bloomsbury Publishing / T & T Clark (2021), 11-19.

  • Olojede, Funlola, L. Juliana Claassens, and Christl M. Maier (eds.): Transgression and Transformation: Feminist, Postcolonial and Queer Biblical Interpretation as Creative Interventions. ( London: Bloomsbury Publishing / T & T Clark, 2021.

  • Solevåg, Anna Rebecca: “Døve, blinde og lamme i Guds rike? Helse og frelse i Det nye testamentet.” In Inger Marie Lid & Anna Rebecca Solevåg (eds.): Religiøst medborgerskap. Funksjonshemming, likeverd og menneskesyn. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2020, 213-230.

  • Solevåg, Anna Rebecca: “Gender und Disability in den Petrusakten: Die apostolische Macht, Menschen zu lähmen.” In Outi Lehtipuu & Silke Petersen (eds.): Antike christliche Apokryfen: Marginalisierte Texte des frühen Christentums. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer GmbH 2020, 161-176.

  • Solevåg, Anna Rebecca: “Perspectives from Disability Studies in the Pastoral Epistles.” In Kristine Henriksen Garroway & John W. Martens (eds.): Children and Methods: Listening To and Learning From Children in the Biblical World. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers 2020, 176-195.

  • Solevåg, Anna Rebecca: “Zacchaeus in the Gospel of Luke: Comic Figure, Sinner, and Included ‘Other’,” Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies 14/2 (2020), 225-240.

  • Solevåg, Anna Rebecca & Inger Marie Lid (eds.): Religiøst medborgerskap. Funksjonshemming, likeverd og menneskesyn. Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk 2020.

PROGRAM: SECOND SEMESTER 2021

More information is coming soon.