Reading the Bible on Turtle Island: An Invitation to North American Indigenous Interpretation

by H. Daniel Zacharias, T. Christopher Hoklotubbe, Shari Russell (Foreword by)

Overview

Join the dance of North American Indigenous interpretations of Christian Scripture

In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Indigenous scholars Chris Hoklotubbe and Danny Zacharias explore what it means to read the Bible from the lens of Indigenous peoples in North America. Exploring the intersection of Scripture, Cultural Traditions, Hearts and Minds, and Creation, they affirm Creator's presence with Indigenous people since the beginning. By recovering these rich histories, this book offers a fresh reading of Scripture that celebrates the assets, blessings, and insights of Indigenous interpretation.

Indigenous culture has often been dismissed or deemed problematic within Western Christian circles, and historical practices have often communicated that Indigenous worldviews have little to offer the church or its understanding of Scripture. Hoklotubbe and Zacharias challenge this perspective, reasserting the dignity of these cultures that were condemned through colonial practices and showing how Indigenous interpretations bring invaluable insights to all of God’s people.

In Reading the Bible on Turtle Island, Hoklotubbe and Zacharias:

• Affirm the dignity and value of Indigenous cultures and their contributions to hermeneutics.
• Explore the intersection of the Bible with Indigenous traditions.
• Delve deeply into the stories of Scripture alongside the complex histories of Indigenous communities in North America.
• Celebrate the unique blessings and insights of Indigenous interpretation.
• Offer a fresh, transformative reading of the Bible that speaks to all of God’s people.

Reading the Bible on Turtle Island is a vital resource for scholars who are interested in the intersection of biblical studies and social location, who are seeking to explore Scripture through an Indigenous hermeneutic, or who desire to learn more about the contributions of Indigenous worldviews to Biblical interpretation. Get your copy today!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781514007563
Publisher:	InterVarsity Press
Publication date:	11/18/2025
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

H. Daniel Zacharias (PhD, Highland Theological College/Aberdeen) is a Cree-Anishinaabe/Métis and Austrian man originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba (Treaty One territory), with ancestors also residing in Treaty Two, Treaty Three, and Treaty Five territories. He lives in Mi’kma’ki (Nova Scotia) with his wife, Maria, and four children in Wolfville, NS. He is associate dean and professor of New Testament studies at Acadia Divinity College, where he has worked since 2007. He also serves as an adjunct faculty for NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community.

T. Christopher Hoklotubbe (ThD, Harvard) is a proud member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. He is the director of graduate studies of NAIITS: An Indigenous Learning Community, the first accredited Indigenous designed, developed, delivered, and governed theological institute. He is also assistant professor of classics at Cornell College (Mount Vernon, Iowa). He is the author of Civilized Piety: The Rhetoric of Pietas in the Pastoral Epistles and the Roman Empire, which was awarded the Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise. He and his wife, Stephanie, have two daughters and live near Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Shari Russell
Protocol

1. Entering the Circle Dance: An Introduction to Turtle Island Hermeneutics
2. It's All Relative: The Scriptures, Creational Kinship, and "All Our Relations"
3. Reading Along the Bright Path: How Jesus' Jubilee Teachings Can Lead Us Back into Shalom/Harmony with All Our Relations
4. Crying for a Vision of Who We Are: Seeing Our Ancestors and Ourselves in Scripture
5. Naboth's Descendants: Reading the Bible Along a Trail of Broken Treaties
6. From Babylon to Boarding Schools: Reading Scripture and Sharing Truths for Reconciliation and Healing
7. Reading While Red(bone): Come and Get Your Love and Ceremony

Conclusion: The Call of the Drum: An Invitation to the Circle of Turtle Island Hermeneutics
Prelude/Appendix: Smoke Signals from the Trail: Honoring Our Elders Around the Council Fire
General Index
Scripture Index

Editorial Reviews

"We have been waiting for a book like this—one that presents indigenous biblical interpretation. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias call their approach to biblical interpretation Turtle Island Hermeneutics. I call it groundbreaking, urgent, and necessary at this present moment. Now students studying the Bible in seminary or college will have a text that will help them do what few books on interpretation can do—take the dirt, the water, the air, our animal kin, and of course, indigenous thought and life seriously. We are now in a new day for biblical scholarship."

Willie James Jennings

"Reading the Bible on Turtle Island is a thought-provoking contribution that invites those shaped by a Western Christian worldview into the circle of Indigenous theological conversation. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias weave a compelling narrative that honors Indigenous insights and engages the Scriptures with depth and integrity. They speak with an authority born of lived experience and careful listening. This book invites readers into a sacred dance of interpretation—one that is deeply communal, rooted in place, and led by the Spirit. It is both a gift and an invitation for the church to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly on a path toward genuine reconciliation. Highly recommended!"

Terry M. Wildman

"How we read ourselves into the Bible shapes the theology we develop. This book offers all Christians another reading, a reading that takes our stories seriously and provides an opportunity to develop an Indigenous theology rather than simply reconciling ourselves to a theology rooted in European priorities."

Patty Krawec

"Reading the Bible on Turtle Island introduces us to the riches of Indigenous interpretation of Scripture and invites us to gather around the council fire and learn from the ongoing discussion Indigenous disciples of Jesus are having about how to 'seek Creator in the Good Medicine Way of Jesus.' T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias not only create a dialogue between biblical scholarship, Indigenous history and wisdom, and ongoing debates about how to relate the gospel to culture, they do so in a way that is simultaneously accessible, deeply moving, gracious enough to create room for disagreement and ongoing debate, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny. Yet the book also offers a challenge, that the path to the healing of the nations and the Western church includes learning from Indigenous disciples who bear witness to the good word of Creator-made-flesh."

Michael J. Rhodes

"This book was not written for me, but I was deeply moved by it. Born and raised in Oklahoma, I am a settler who grew up proximate to Indigenous peoples but remained in great need of the education T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias provide here. Through honest history, insightful exegesis, and thought-provoking and transformative theology, Reading the Bible on Turtle Island drew forth both laughter and tears. I pray Indigenous readers are encouraged by it and settler-readers, like myself, are awakened by it. This book is a must-read for everyone."

Amy Peeler

"This book will change the way you read the Bible and see the world. It invites readers to learn from creation as we do from Scripture. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias see themselves and their ancestors in Scripture and weave Indigenous stories, ceremonies, and lifeways into their engagement with biblical narratives. In doing so, they confront colonial legacies while offering liberative readings of biblical texts that arise from within the land. This book has expanded my understanding of community and deepened my desire to be in harmonious relationships with Creator and all my creational kin."

Janette H. Ok

"Some years ago, I was told that Indigenous contributions to biblical scholarship would, at best, be superficial. The real work, after all, had already been done by European scholars. Reading the Bible on Turtle Island justifies my contention that this was not so. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and H. Daniel Zacharias unpack Indigenous understandings of the biblical narrative for us in profoundly earthy and culturally complex ways. For the first time ever, many Indigenous people have read themselves into the biblical story and, together with the authors, have answered Lamin Sanneh's 2003 question, 'Whose religion is Christianity?' 'It's ours,' they have said!"

Terry LeBlanc

"We have been waiting for a book like this—one that presents indigenous biblical interpretation. T. Christopher Hoklotubbe and Daniel Zacharias call their approach to biblical interpretation Turtle Island Hermeneutics. I call it groundbreaking, urgent, and necessary at this present moment. Now students studying the Bible in seminary or college will have a text that will help them do what few books on interpretation can do—take the dirt, the water, the air, our animal kin, and of course, indigenous thought and life seriously. We are now in a new day for biblical scholarship."

William James Jennings