The Lemba, the 'People of the Book' in Southern Africa

Abstract

The remembered past is the material with which biblical Israel constructed its identity as a people, a religion, and a culture. It is a mixture of history, collective memory, folklore, and literary brilliance. In Israel's formative years, these memories circulated orally in the context of family and tribe. Over time they came to be crystallized in various written texts. This is also true of the Lemba, the so-called 'People of the Book' of Southern Africa. The religion and culture of ancient Israel and that of the Lemba (and other African cultures) are expressed orally and by texts, and in no small part also created by them, as they formulate new or altered conceptions of the sacred past. For most of their history unwritten laws and practices played a major role in the life of both these oral cultures. The fact that there are numerous points of convergence between most cultures in Africa and the Old Testament suggests that the reading or reception of the Old Testament there would differ from that on other continents or in other countries. African cultures have a contribution to make as far as the interpretation of the Old Testament is concerned.