Proverbs and the African Tree of Life

Download or read book Proverbs and the African Tree of Life written by Dorothy BEA Akoto-Abutiate and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-08-07 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Proverbs and the African Tree of Life Dorothy BEA Akoto-Abutiate juxtaposes chosen sayings from Proverbs and selected Ewe Folk proverbs using the agricultural metaphor of “grafting,” which she calls a “hermeneutic of grafting.” Though these two sets of sayings come from completely different cultural contexts, Akoto argues that folk sayings/proverbs, which abound in Africa, should be considered as an already mature, established tree on to which a piece of the biblical tree is spliced or engrafted to produce hybridized fruits that have uniquely different tastes than the fruits of each tree individually. This metaphorical grafting process allows the message of the Bible (in Proverbs) to be understood, imbibed and appropriated in Africa.