Introduction

This chapter discusses the aims of Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible. The key research questions for this book are: (1) How did Hagar become Black? and (2) What purpose did or does that serve? It situates this project at the intersection of African American biblical scholarship and reception history within biblical scholarship. This chapter introduces terminology related to race and ethnicity and provides background information on issues of color within the ancient world and within biblical texts. It explores the persistence of racial categorization within US society and the US literary imagination despite the lack of biological or genetic basis for contemporary notions of race. It discusses the importance of African American vernacular traditions and the ongoing and dynamic social and cultural interactions between African Americans and biblical texts. It provides an overview of each chapter within the book.

Epilogue

The Epilogue offers the author’s reflections on being a Black woman biblical scholar and writing on issues relating to race, gender, and biblical interpretation. It includes the author’s discussion of hopes for the future of biblical studies, including biblical reception history projects on race. It discusses the desires of reading communities to see themselves reflected in biblical texts and to interpret Hagar in ways that resonate with their experiences and concerns. It addresses the potential benefits and drawbacks of the ethnic and racial identification of and cultural appropriation of biblical characters. It concludes that the story of Hagar offers us a unique opportunity to investigate the ways in which we use biblical texts to illustrate how we see ourselves and others.

Aunt Hagar

Chapter 3 explains how a Black Aunt Hagar figure develops as an African American cultural icon unrelated to biblical Hagar. This chapter discusses how different understandings of Hagar appear within naming traditions as well as within visual arts, music, and literature. It details how various Black Hagar figures within African American literature and culture do not necessarily refer to biblical Hagar despite the use of the biblical name Hagar. It contends that as scholars, writers, and other artists link a Black Aunt Hagar figure with biblical Hagar, the resulting association between these figures contributes to the notion of biblical Hagar as a Black woman.

Egyptian Hagar

Chapter 2 explores the interpretation of Hagar in nineteenth-century pro- and anti-slavery literature in the United States. This chapter illustrates how nineteenth-century interpreters distance Hagar’s Egyptian ethnicity from any connection with African Americans. As well, it shows how they regard biblical enslavement as distinct from US chattel enslavement. While abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates argue using biblical texts, interpreters on both sides tend not to cite texts relating to the Hagar/Ishmael narrative. Although Hagar is an enslaved Egyptian woman, these interpreters tend not to regard her plight as analogous to that of enslaved African peoples in the United States.

Mother Hagar

Chapter 1 examines Hagar as the mother of Ishmael in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It analyzes the depiction of Hagar in the Hebrew Bible, in the New Testament, and in later Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts. These texts provide the foundations for other interpretations of Hagar in different time periods. Although these texts provide limited details regarding Hagar’s origins or her appearance, this chapter analyzes how these interpretations of Hagar highlight particular elements of difference, including gender, ethnicity, and status. It demonstrates that early interpretations tend not to racialize Hagar or to link her to Blackness. Hagar’s distinctiveness is connected to her construction as mother of Ishmael and as mother of a people.

Black Hagar

Chapter 4 details connections between multiple Black Hagar traditions within scholarship in religious studies and biblical studies. In conversation with Delores Williams’s Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk, it addresses the linking of Hagar with African American women’s experiences and the notion of a tradition of African American appropriation of Hagar. This chapter highlights how some scholars within classics and biblical studies emphasize the African presence in biblical lands and peoples. Also, it analyzes contextual readings of Hagar that create analogies between her experiences and those of contemporary women. It considers the influence of womanist work within theology and other fields in contributing to the popularity of a Black Hagar figure.