Original Research - Special Collection: Foundation subjects - Old and New Testament Studies

Between the Spirit and the Word: Reading the Gendered African Pentecostal Bible

Musa Dube
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 70, No 1 | a2651 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v70i1.2651 | © 2014 Musa Dube | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 06 March 2014 | Published: 20 November 2014

About the author(s)

Musa Dube, Department of New Testament Studies, University of Botswana, Botswana

Abstract

This article reviews the gendered Pentecostal Bible as documented by various researchers. It assesses how the prophetic-spirit framework encounters and functions within the framework of the inerrant but patriarchal written word. The Spirit framework is an oral canon that opens spaces of gender empowerment. Yet Pentecostal scholars problematise the supposedly liberating Spirit, highlighting that it sometimes denies the materiality of human existence and inhabits the constraining parameters of patriarchal church structures. The article suggests that in addition to the Spirit-Word framework, new Pentecostal theological categories, such as healing and deliverance and the prosperity gospel need to be investigated for the new spaces they open for gender justice. 'The authority of the Bible as the word of God, and the experience of the Holy Spirit form two of the most important sources of Pentecostal theology' (Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu 2004:390).

Keywords

Gender; Pentecostal Bible; parameters of church structures; prophetic spirit

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