Asian-American Biblical Interpretation: Evangelical Voices

  Sponsors: Max Lee and Milton Eng

Asian American Biblical Interpretation (AABI) has come of age in recent years. Publications continue apace with works as recent as the encyclopedic T&T Clark Handbook of Asian American Biblical Hermeneutics (2019). In addition, Asian American biblical scholars have now attained the highest and most visible positions in the academy including presidents and deans of seminaries, the presidency of the Association of Theological Schools and even most recently the highest office in our premier guild, President of the SBL.

Yet, most of such scholarship and representation has come from non-evangelical or mainline theological schools. Evangelicals are less represented (see Chloe Sun, “Recent Research on Asian and Asian American Hermeneutics Related to the Hebrew Bible” CBR 17(3): 258 [238–65]). This new research group provides a space for Asian American evangelical scholars to engage with, critique, integrate and indeed pave new ground in current approaches in Asian American Biblical Interpretation. The fact that the majority of Asian American Protestants are evangelical makes their voices even more imperative. “Asian American” includes but is not limited to the Confucian-belt countries of origin.

Asian American biblical interpretation by its very nature is interdisciplinary. Thus, invited guests will include theologians, historians, sociologists and scholars from other disciplines to inform our research. For further information, please contact Milton Eng ([email protected]) or Max Lee  ([email protected])


Theme: Family, Kinship, and Community

This year our research group is issuing an open call for papers on the subject of “Family, Kinship, and Community.” We are seeking paper proposals that will explore this broad theme from the perspective of an Asian American biblical interpreter. For example, it is well-known that Asian and Asian American worldviews display a distinctively collectivist understanding of self vis-à-vis western individualism. The notion of “family” is also multi-generational and often hierarchical. Papers should be rooted in the biblical text emerging from either the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible or New Testament. Two invited papers will also be part of the program this year. Paper proposals (approx. 450-500 words) can be made to either Milton Eng ([email protected]) or Max Lee ([email protected]) by Feb. 28th.