Hindus and Their Christian Bible

Book Description

During the height of European colonial expansion, a fascinating and largely overlooked phenomenon was taking place across the Indian subcontinent. While Western scholars devoted themselves to studying Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, and Zoroastrian sacred texts, Hindu intellectuals were conducting their own rigorous examination of the colonizer's most sacred book: the Christian Bible.

R. S. Sugirtharajah reveals how these Hindu thinkers approached the Bible not as passive recipients, but as active interpreters who transformed it to align with their own spiritual and cultural contexts. Through their resistant and often subversive readings, they stripped the Bible of its intended authority as an instrument of imperial power, creating interpretations that went far beyond what colonial missionaries had envisioned.

This scholarly exploration brings to light the voices of prominent Hindu reformers and nationalists, including Raja Rammohun Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. The author demonstrates how these figures engaged in sophisticated textual negotiations with missionaries and orientalists, ultimately developing their own methods of "Hinduizing" biblical texts.

By examining this neglected chapter in religious history, Sugirtharajah allows these Hindu interpreters to speak on their own terms, free from Christian preconceptions. The result is a compelling study of how spiritual traditions can creatively engage with foreign texts while maintaining their own integrity and wisdom.