Rebel soldiers as good Samaritans: New Testament parables in an African context

Abstract

This article aims to critique western understanding of New Testament times. Most of the historical reconstructions done in the West are based on what biblical scholars have learned through primary and secondary written sources, occasionally from archaeological findings. The article recounts the author’s experiences at Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Students who themselves live in agrarian, technologically undeveloped rural areas, convinced her to return to Africa in order to travel with them and learn for herself how they relate to an economically poor lifestyle of two thousand years ago. As a result, the article argues that the ordinary in Africa should be seen as extraordinary from a western worldview and completes a full circle by being in the context of New Testament times.