ABSTRACT
Introduction In this chapter, I want to set out in greater detail, with supporting evidence and documentation, the symbolic meanings that Christianity attributed to the colours black and white, and from there to proceed to the discussion of how these very same black and white colours were used as human categorising devices in early Christian exegetical literature. I propose to do three things. First, I will focus on the symbolic and categorical uses of black and white in the Bible. It is important to start with the Bible because the Christian tradition acknowledges the Bible as a sacred book inspired by God. This belief bestowed on the Bible an authoritative status; as a consequence, it fundamentally informs Christian thought, principles, beliefs and attitudes. The symbolic and categorical uses of black and white form an essential part of this belief system. For the investigation of the use of the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ in the Bible, I have chosen the King James Version of the English Bible (KJV) because this version of the Bible is used in Ghana for the dissemination of the Christian belief system. Second, I will survey the employment of symbolic and categorical uses of black and white in early Christian exegetical literature. The aim here is to survey work already done by scholars who have analysed the Bible and the work of key early Christian exegetes, such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose. However, unlike these scholars, I will treat the categorical uses of black and white as a topic for investigation rather than taking them for granted. Finally, I will attempt to highlight the normative consequences of the Christian use of the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ as human categorising devices, given the negative and positive moral values that the Christian tradition associated with these colours respectively.
