Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Foreword To Old Ship Of Zion, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Walter F. Pitts died July 20, 1991. I did not know him personally; I came to know only a part of him through the manuscript-obviously an important part of his life-that has been transformed into the book now before the reader. If that which is created is in the image of its creator, I suspect that had I met Walter Pitts I probably would have liked him very much; I know I would have been impressed by him, and would have learned a great deal from him.

At first, when I was asked by Oxford University Press to review Pitts's …

African American Traditions And The Bible, Vincent L. Wimbush

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Introduction: Reading the Bible = Reading the Self and the World. African Americans' engagement of the Bible is complex and dynamic. It is a fascinating historical drama, beginning with the Africans' involuntary arrival in the New World. But as sign of the creativity and adaptability of the Africans and of the evocative power of the Bible, the drama continues to the present day, notwithstanding the complexity and controversies of intervening periods. Thus, there is in African Americans' engagement of the Bible potential not only for an interpretive history of their readings as a history of their collective self understandings, visions, …