| abstract |
This dissertation will apply decolonial theory to biblical interpretation within the context of Puerto Rico's socio-political issues. Therefore, this work will engage in Puerto Rican decolonial biblical interpretation and propose hermeneutical statements that address the persistent colonial situation on the Island. This theoretical framework will privilege the voices and perspectives of those marginalized within contemporary Western academic theology. In this case, these voices belong to Puerto Ricans, both scholarly and non-scholarly, who are working to denounce abuses, resist and destabilize the continuity of dominant thought, and break from it to establish our own way of thinking.
The exegetical focus will be on Revelation 18 and its call to break free from the imperial power dynamics of its time — the Roman coloniality of power — by delinking from them. This call originates from the margins of the empire and, as I will argue, can be interpreted as a decolonial summons to Puerto Rican Christians, producing liberating epistemologies from our marginal position relative to the US Empire. For this dissertation, the "coming out" enjoined by Revelation 18 is the quintessential metaphor for breaking free from the imperial power and knowledge systems that have kept Puerto
Rican thought colonized for so long.
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