African Americans' unique encounter with the Bible has shaped centuries of spirituality and the social engagement of a whole continent. In The Bible and African Americans, highly respected biblical scholar Vincent Wimbush outlines different ways African Americans read the Bible.

The Bible offered a language-world--a place that held the stories where they could retreat and imagine themselves as something different than they were--through which African Americans have negotiated the strange land into which they were thrust. Wimbush outlines six African American readings that correspond to different historical periods. He details the various responses to these historical situations and how they helped shape a collective self-understanding.

In this important and concise book, Wimbush demonstrates how the Bible empowered African Americans with agency and social power, still true today. When their voices were taken away, the Bible offered a way to speak again.

By Vincent L. Wimbush