Rewriting Christianity: African American women writers and the Bible

In this dissertation, I argue that contemporary African-American women writers rewrite the biblical narrative in their novels and that this rewriting is a liberatory practice because it subverts and transforms the myths and symbols central to hegemonic discourse.;The impetus to see rewriting as a discursive act comes from contemporary feminist and postcolonial theory. I focus particularly on the importance of rewriting and rereading foundational texts.;The Bible is perhaps the text most central to Western culture and ideology. The myths that make up the biblical narrative inform ethical, political, social, and economic systems in Europe and the United States. For this reason, the Bible is the most appropriate text to rewrite and biblical symbolism is the most significant to dismantle.;The authors I discuss, Gloria Naylor, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler, make three distinct critiques. The first critique is of dominant cultures' simultaneous identities as superior and as persecuted, and how those identities come out of biblical tradition. American mythology allows for this dual identification by aligning the founding of America with the biblical story of the Exodus thus making Anglo-Americans both God's chosen people and a people escaping from persecution and slavery. Secondly, these contemporary writers critique the central Christian myths of sacrifice and atonement and how these myths support domination and marginalization of women and people of color. A third important critique is of ideology that attempts to mask its position as ideology and of the dangers of any totalizing discourse.;All of these writers endeavor to collapse the myths that support domination and oppression. As biblical "truths" are continually rewritten, hegemony and patriarchy are weakened from the foundation, and social transformation becomes possible.