REV. Fergus King

Biography

My interests have been shaped by time spent as student teacher and priest in Scotland, Tanzania, England and Australia, as well as contacts elsewhere in Southern and Central Africa. African colleagues have imbued me with an sense of urgency: the study of mission and New Testament must have some purpose and matter-seriously. The Bible engages with issues of salvation and liberation, and its handling must earth those matters in the stuff of everyday life.

On the plus side this gives a great enthusiasm for the subject: I try to research with some fire in my belly. The downside is an impatience with some of the fustiness of New Testament Studies as a northern academic tradition. Above all, it raises issues of justice, and a great concern that the power of reading Scripture must not rest solely with those whom geography and circumstance sets in the privileged places of scholarship in the global north: there needs to be leveling of the playing field so that insights of all readers be respected, and not pushed to the margins by those who would limit valid scholarship to those well-versed in the rules of a guild.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Theology, University of South Africa, 2006
• Bachelor of Divinity (Honors), University of Edinburgh - Scotland, 1989
• Master of Arts (Honours), University of St Andrews, 1985

Research

Research keywords

• Hermeneutics
• Post-Aristotelian Philosophy
• Religion
• The New Testament
• Theology

Research expertise

The New Testament in its context (with an emphasis on socio-historical and rhetorical criticism), Contextual Biblical Interpretation, Bible in Africa, Hermeneutics- particularly the significance of Bahktin, Gadamer and Wittgenstein for reading the Scriptures, Missiology with particular reference to the NT.

Languages

• Greek
• Latin
• Scots
• Swahili

Fields of Research

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Church History
• Greek
• Missiology
• New Testament