Article February 7, 2000 Issue

THE PROMISE OF JUBILEE

Trudy C. Palmer

Why might we need yet another "new" Bible? Not a new translation or interpretation, but a new setting for the King James Version of the Scriptures? After all, the Word is the Word. Then again, the recently released Jubilee Bible, published by the American Bible Society, suggests something more. Prefaced by almost three hundred pages of essays and images that illumine the Bible's role in African American life, the Holy Scriptures take on new meaning in this setting. Suddenly, the Word is the Word — and then some.

The supplementary material covers a wide range of subjects — from a multifaceted discussion of Jubilee Scriptural passages to essays such as "The Presence of Blacks in Biblical Antiquity," "Music in the Black Church," and "The Blessing: Restoring Hope for African American Youth." A few essays specifically confront longstanding, racially biased interpretations of Scripture. Others celebrate the Bible's central role in African American life from slave times to the present.

Also included are maps and chronologies, as well as a wealth of visual images (photographs, paintings, woodcuts, and so forth). One of the most touching is Joe Cauchi's oil painting "Black Madonna and Child." One of the most poignant is a rendering by Kimanne Smith entitled "Scipio and Grandson," which portrays a slave who was murdered for teaching his grandson to read the Bible.

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