Contextual reading of 2 kings 5:1-15 in relation to african ideological perspectives on disease: a case study of covid-19

Abstract

The study focused on contextual reading of 2Kings 5:1-15 in relation to African ideological perspectives on disease. The study used qualitative research methodologies and approaches and was based on library and document sources; using documents as the key tool in data collection. The study falls in a broad framework of African postcolonial interpretation of the Bible. A detailed examination of 2 Kings 5: 1-15 was done, with focus put on understanding the text in its own context. Centering the theme of Naaman’s leprosy in the broader ideological context of the ancient biblical world. The study further reads 2 Kings 5:1-15 in relation to the Africa epistemological construct of mystical diseases like Covid-19, Ebola, Nodding Diseases, Leprosy and among others. In view of African spirituality, the study focuses on the causation, attitudes, and response to such diseases. Chapter six of this study encompasses a contextual approach where the epistemological worldviews of 2 Kings 5:1-15 are read in correlation with African ideological perspectives on disease. The study reveals a mutual relationship between the biblical and African understanding of diseases of mystical nature. Such diseases are perceived to be of a spiritual causation, hence requiring a spiritual response. Their contagious nature is in both the text and context linked to a transfer of negative mystical powers. Victims of such diseases are perceived as condemned and infectious, and can only be handled in specialized spiritual ways. Though the control measures of such mystical diseases look synonymous to modern scientific pandemic standard operating procedures, the motivation behind such measures are different when compared with those of modern science. Besides, African religious approaches to disease have often conflicted to national authorities that recognize World Health Organization SOPs. The study highlights the influence of attitude and perception to mystical disease management and implores the African modern scientists to make use of the African Ideological Perspectives on disease in their response to and dealership with Africans in the face of pandemic.