Islands, Islanders, and the Bible: RumInations ed. by Jione Havea, Margaret Aymer, and Steed Vernyl Davidson (review)

This collection of essays emerges from the Islands, Islanders, and Scriptures group of the Society of Biblical Literature. The group and the collection bring island hermeneutics and island studies to biblical criticism and raise questions of whether and how being shaped by island space can serve as a point of departure for interpretation. Following an opening chapter ("RumInations") by the editors, the essays are divided into three parts, labeled as "Waves." The "First Waves" consist of nine methodologically diverse essays written by actual "islanders": Margaret Aymer, "Islandedness, Paul, and John of Patmos"; Steed Vernyl Davidson, "Building on Sand: Shifting Readings of Genesis 38 and Daniel 8"; Nāsili Vaka'uta, "Island-Marking Texts: Engaging the Bible in Oceania"; Mosese Ma'ilo, "Celebrating Hybridity in Island Bibles: Jesus, the Tamaalepō (Child of the Dark) in Mataio 1:18-26"; Althea Spencer Miller, "Creolizing Hermeneutics: A Caribbean Invitation"; Grant Macaskill, "Gaelic Psalmody and a Theology of Place in the Western Isles of Scotland"; J. Richard Middleton, "Islands in the Sun: Overtures to a Caribbean Creation Theology"; Hisako Kinukawa, "The Island of Tyre: The Exploitation of Peasants in the Regions of Tyre and Galilee"; Jione Havea, "Sea-ing Ruth with Joseph's Mistress." The second and third "waves" each contain three essays, not necessarily written by islanders, responding to those in the first section: Roland Boer, "Sand, Surf, and Scriptures" (responds to Davidson, Vaka'uta, and Middleton); Aliou C. Niang, "Islandedness, Translation, and Creolization" (responds to Aymer, Ma'ilo, and Miller); Andrew Mein, "The Wrong Kind of Island? Notes from a 'Scept'red Isle'" (responds to Macaskill, Kinukawa, and Havea); Elaine M. Wainwright, "Third Wave Reading" (responds to Aymer, Ma'ilo, Kinukawa); Daniel Smith-Christopher, "Thinking on Islands" (responds to Miller, Macaskill, and Middleton); Randall C. Bailey, "Writing from Another 'Room-in-ating' Place" (responds to Davidson, Vaka'uta, and Havea).

To varying degrees, the respondents also engage the introductory chapter, in which general editors Davidson, Aymer, and Havea consider how island space is construed by both islanders and non-islanders, articulate questions and possibilities concerning reading and interpretation from an island perspective, and discuss the relationship between island identity and national identity. One challenge this first essay identifies is for "island thinking" to break away from either simply reproducing or exclusively reacting to the dominant discourses of Continental, imperialist cultures that have a long history of colonizing islands. To escape this creative block, Davidson, Aymer, and Havea propose a renewed focus on the unique geographies of island space (of which the sea is a key feature) and an intentional embrace of one's marginal status as an islander. Their essay makes a compelling theoretical case for a distinct island hermeneutics, though helpfully at this point in the enterprise it is suggestive rather than prescriptive about what it might mean to read from an island or "insular" perspective. Ultimately, the value of this essay, and of the collection as a whole, lies not in charting a specific course for islander hermeneutics but in raising many questions about how "place," specifically "island space," affects thinking about and reading the Bible.

Certain essays focus primarily on mapping contours of islander hermeneutics (again, offering different possibilities, rather than a single hermeneutical program), analyzing biblical texts either briefly (Aymer, Davidson) or not at all (Vaka'uta, Miller). For Aymer, the negotiation of diaspora space modeled by different island discourses provides new ways to discuss how biblical authors respond to their own diaspora spaces. Whereas Davidson's essay turns to island geography by using the characteristics of sand as a springboard for outlining his hermeneutical approach, focuses on Caribbean island identity, and uses Genesis 38 and Daniel 8 to illustrate his approach, Vaka'uta uses Tongan concepts and values to develop his own hermeneutical framework, one designed to be "meaningful and relevant for readers in Oceania" (p. 57), and does not apply his hermeneutics to any sample...