Comparative Analysis of the State of Religious Pluralism between Intertestamental Palestine and Post-Apartheid South Africa
Vusimuzi Goodman Nkuna 
Issue: Vol.2 No.12 December 2021 Article 3 pp. 224-233
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20212123 | Published online 29th December, 2021.
© 2021 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Religious pluralism has characterized societies since time immemorial and has been one of the sources of conflict in many societies. This article compares how religious pluralism was handled in intertestamental Palestine and the manner it is managed in post-apartheid South Africa. The study used academic literature which applied the Apocrypha to describe the religious context of Palestine between 336 BC and 63 BC. The themes that emerged from this analysis were then used to source academic literature that describes the religious context of South Africa from 1994 to 2021. This process led to the synthesis of the similarities and differences of the two contexts. The findings latently reveal the contribution of the Apocrypha to theological reflection while simultaneously showing that the Roman Empire’s violent attempts to undermine religious pluralism in intertestamental Palestine bred counterviolence. The paper further reveals that post-apartheid South Africa’s use of legal instruments to promote religious pluralism seems to contribute to the optimization of religious freedom and peaceful co-existence. These findings are likely to contribute to the discourse of religious pluralism, interfaith dialogue, and intercultural communication.
Keywords: Hellenism, Apocrypha, Religious Pluralism, Democracy
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Vusimuzi Goodman Nkuna holds an MTh from North-West University, South Africa and an MBA from the University of South Africa. He is a graduate student at the South African Theological Seminary currently at his foundational stage of his PhD in Theology studies. His research interests include pastoral care, the occult in Africa and interfaith dialogue.
Nkuna V.G., “Comparative Analysis of the State of Religious Pluralism between Intertestamental Palestine and Post-Apartheid South Africa,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 2, no.12 (2021): 224-233. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20212123
© 2021 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
