Re-Reading Luke 18:1-8 in the Angolan Context through the African Hermeneutics of Liberation towards the Quest for Social Justice in Luke’s Gospel

Abstract

The present research was informed by scholars who have documented the cries of the oppressed and marginalized people generally in Africa, represented here by the Angolan context, due to the injustices they face daily. It has chosen Luke 18:1-8 and its teaching on persistence on justice seeking. Luke 18:1-8, referred to as the Parable of the Widow, though occupying a mere eight verses of the gospel is a challenging text and has been a source of broad and challenging theological reflections. The history of reception has shown that, like other parables, Luke 18:1-8 has also been interpreted as an allegory or a metaphor of prayer and divine response. It has been identified that little attention is given to the issue of justice in the interpretation of the parable. Therefore, the problem of this research was stated with the following questions: How does Luke 18: 1-8 relate to the quest of social justice in the context that produced Luke’s gospel and what can be the implication of re-reading this parable in the Angolan context text through African hermeneutics of liberation lenses? The main objective of this research consisted in unveiling Jesus’ intended meaning for the parable and identifying a Lukan model which can help in bringing social justice in the Angolan context, by carrying out an assessment of the sitz-im leben as well as an exegetical analysis of the parable. To address this main objective, the research was divided into five chapters, including a general introduction as chapter one, an assessment of the socio-historical setting of parable in chapter two, a lexical and grammatical analysis of the Luke 18:1-8 in chapter three, an African hermeneutical re-reading of the parable in chapter four, and in the chapter five it brings a summary of the findings as well as a general conclusion and recommendations for further studies. The analysis of the socio-historical setting of the parable, supported by the lexical and grammatical analysis of the Greek text, provided a valuable grounding to understanding the behavior and motivations of both the widow and the judge, as well as to identify the justice motif as the central concern of the parable. The African hermeneutical reading within the context of this study was the application phase where the analysis of social justice in Luke’s gospel was applied to the Angolan context, taking into consideration the socio-historical, political and economic realities of the country. The study finally found out that this parable fulfills a liberationist-educational function to its listeners and readers by becoming a reflection and analytic instrument of their socio-historical reality.