Josiah's Passover

Focusing on the celebrated story of Josiah's Passover in 2 Kings, Shigeyuki Nakanose provides a dramatic demonstration of the contribution of sociological hermeneutics to contemporary Biblical exegesis. This method complements historical-critical exegesis by reconstructing the social systems of Biblical communities in their religious as well as their economic and political orders. After introducing the sociological method and a brief consideration of historical and literary-critical readings of Josiah's Passover, Nakanose explicates the method of sociological analysis and its facets - economic, social, political, and ideological. Turning to the text itself, he shows clearly how the process of liturgical purification it describes is intimately tied to the centralization of political and commercial interests in ancient Israel. He then goes on to demonstrate, using the experience of Brazilian base communities, what happens when this critical reading is joined with critical reflection on the reader's own social location.