Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial/ethnic population in the United States. Especially since the 1990s, readings by Asian American biblical scholars have been increasing to meet the particular theological and pastoral concerns of their Christian racial/ethnic seminarians, clergy, and churches. Gale A. Yee is one of their major interpreters, becoming the first Asian American and first woman of color president of the oldest professional guild devoted to the critical study of the Bible, the Society of Biblical Literature. This book is an anthology of her major, ground-breaking essays on Asian American theorizing and analysis of the biblical text. It is a retrospective of her growth of over almost three decades in wrestling with questions like “What is Asian American biblical hermeneutics and how does one undertake it?”

The first reference resource on how Asian Americans are currently reading and interpreting the Bible, this volume also serves a valuable role in both developing and disseminating what can be termed as Asian American biblical hermeneutics. The volume works from the important background that Asian Americans are the fastest growing ethnic/racial minority population in the USA, and that 42% of this group identifies as Christian. This provides a useful starting point from which to examine what may be distinctive about Asian American approaches to the Bible. Part 1 of the Handbook describes six major ethic groups that make up 85% of Asian population (by country of origin: China, Philippines, Indian Subcontinent, Vietnam, Korea, Japan) and outlines the specific concerns each group has when its members read the Bible. Part 2 of the Handbook examines major critical methods in biblical interpretation and suggests adjustments that may be helpful for Asian Americans to make when they are interpreting the Bible. Finally, Part 3 provides 25 interpretations by Asian American biblical scholars on specific texts in the Bible, using what they consider to be Asian American hermeneutics. Taken together the Handbook interprets the Bible both with and for the Asian American communities.

Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial/ethnic population in the United States. Especially since the 1990s, readings by Asian American biblical scholars have been increasing to meet the particular theological and pastoral concerns of their Christian racial/ethnic seminarians, clergy, and churches. Gale A. Yee is one of their major interpreters, becoming the first Asian American and first woman of color president of the oldest professional guild devoted to the critical study of the Bible, the Society of Biblical Literature. This book is an anthology of her major, ground-breaking essays on Asian American theorizing and analysis of the biblical text. It is a retrospective of her growth of over almost three decades in wrestling with questions like "What is Asian American biblical hermeneutics and how does one undertake it?"

Ways of Being, Ways of Reading is a collection of essays that address biblical interpretation and the Bible's role from an Asian North point of view. Beginning with the history of biblical interpretation in Asian countries and cultures, this impressive collection by noted contemporary scholars, address issues and themes such as cultural hermeneutics, the politics of identity, and what constitutes Asian American theology. Contributors include: Devadasan N. Premnath, John Yueh-Han Yieh, Samuel Cheon, Philip P. Chia, Andrew Yueking Lee, Lai Ling Elizabeth Ngan, Uriah Yong-Hwan Kim, Jean K. Kim, John Ahn, Mai-Anh Le Tran, Sze-Kar Wan, Gale A. Yee, Frank M. Yamada, Mary F. Foskett, and Henry W. Morisada Rietz

As Asia is the cradle of many religions, the New Testament writings should be interpreted by accepting its pluriform religious and ideological aspects. The existence of multiple Christian denominations also demands balanced interpretation. This book demonstrates inclusive biblical claims within multireligious and multidenominational contexts.

The Bible's influence on the West has received much more attention than its complex career in the East. R. S. Sugirtharajah's expansive study of Asia's idiosyncratic relationship with the Bible tells of missionaries, imperialists, and reformers who molded Biblical texts in order to influence religion, politics, and daily life from India to China.

The volume contributes a postcolonial perspective to such topics as textual production, commentarial writings and translations in colonial times, and then moves on to inspect Eurocentric notions embedded in current western biblical interpretation especially in projects such as "Jesus Research." It also contains an overview of and introduction to one of the most challenging and controversial theories of our time, postcolonialism--a theory that gives mediation and representation to Third World people. Though long established in cultural studies, postcolonial theory has not previously been seriously applied to Asian biblical interpretation.