H. Daniel Zacharias

Join the dance of North American Indigenous interpretations of Christian Scripture

In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Indigenous scholars Chris Hoklotubbe and Danny Zacharias explore what it means to read the Bible from the lens of Indigenous peoples in North America. Exploring the intersection of Scripture, Cultural Traditions, Hearts and Minds, and Creation, they affirm Creator's presence with Indigenous people since the beginning. By recovering these rich histories, this book offers a fresh reading of Scripture that celebrates the assets, blessings, and insights of Indigenous interpretation.

Indigenous culture has often been dismissed or deemed problematic within Western Christian circles, and historical practices have often communicated that Indigenous worldviews have little to offer the church or its understanding of Scripture. Hoklotubbe and Zacharias challenge this perspective, reasserting the dignity of these cultures that were condemned through colonial practices and showing how Indigenous interpretations bring invaluable insights to all of God’s people.

In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Hoklotubbe and Zacharias

• Affirm the dignity and value of Indigenous cultures and their contributions to hermeneutics.
• Explore the intersection of the Bible with Indigenous traditions.
• Delve deeply into the stories of Scripture alongside the complex histories of Indigenous communities in North America.
• Celebrate the unique blessings and insights of Indigenous interpretation.
• Offer a fresh, transformative reading of the Bible that speaks to all of God’s people.

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island is a vital resource for scholars who are interested in the intersection of biblical studies and social location, who are seeking to explore Scripture through an Indigenous hermeneutic, or who desire to learn more about the contributions of Indigenous worldviews to Biblical interpretation. 

Reviews
"We have been waiting for a book like this—one that presents indigenous biblical interpretation. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and Daniel Zacharias call their approach to biblical interpretation Turtle Island Hermeneutics. I call it groundbreaking, urgent, and necessary at this present moment. Now students studying the Bible in seminary or college will have a text that will help them do what few books on interpretation can do—take the dirt, the water, the air, our animal kin, and of course, indigenous thought and life seriously. We are now in a new day for biblical scholarship." — William James Jennings, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University Divinity School

"Some years ago, I was told that Indigenous contributions to biblical scholarship would, at best, be superficial. The real work, after all, had already been done by European scholars. Reading the Bible on Turtle Island justifies my contention that this was not so. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and Daniel Zacharias unpack Indigenous understandings of the biblical narrative for us in profoundly earthy and culturally complex ways. For the first time ever, many Indigenous people have read themselves into the biblical story and, together with the authors, have answered Lamin Sanneh's 2003 question, 'Whose religion is Christianity?' 'It's ours,' they have said!"— Terry LeBlanc, director emeritus and elder in residence of NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community

"Reading the Bible on Turtle Island introduces us to the riches of Indigenous interpretation of Scripture and invites us to gather around the council fire and learn from the ongoing discussion Indigenous disciples of Jesus are having about how to 'seek Creator in the Good Medicine Way of Jesus.' T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias not only create a dialogue between biblical scholarship, Indigenous history and wisdom, and ongoing debates about how to relate the gospel to culture, they do so in a way that is simultaneously accessible, deeply moving, gracious enough to create room for disagreement and ongoing debate, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Yet the book also offers a challenge, that the path to the healing of the nations and the Western church includes learning from Indigenous disciples who bear witness to the good word of Creator-made-flesh."— Michael J. Rhodes, author of Just Discipleship and lecturer in Old Testament at Carey Baptist College

"How we read ourselves into the Bible shapes the theology we develop. This book offers all Christians another reading, a reading that takes our stories seriously and provides an opportunity to develop an Indigenous theology rather than simply reconciling ourselves to a theology rooted in European priorities." — Patty Krawec, author of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future and Bad Indians Book Club: Reading at the Edge of a Thousand Worlds

Additional Information
240 pages | 6.00" x 9.00" | Paperback