- SBS is a learnedAfrican international forum for biblical scholarship, established by Hokma House, and was formally inaugurated by Hokma House on 25-29 September 2012 in Abuja.
- The formation of SBS marks a new stage on the African scholarly platform for the engagement of the Christian scriptures in their ancient and (post-) modern contexts. Each annual meeting thus begins and continues in the long (scholarly) search for scriptural meaning in (new) social contexts and frontiers that we encounter today.
- Located in Africa, the SBS mission is to bring together, under the banner of searching the scriptures, committed students of the bible who shall devote their time and resources to the study of these ancient writings, in how they (have been used to) shape societies and human civilizations and continue to do so well into the future.
- A biblical professional society in Africa has a living mission to explore critically the religio-cultural and political affinities between Africa and the biblical world, so as to discover the promise or perilwhich the ancient world holds for Africa today; and how one might understand the broad range of engagements with that world by ancient Israel/early Judaism and the Jesus movement/early Christianity.
- A biblical society can ill-afford to be lost in the ancient world while oblivious to the challenges of the moment; nor can it fail to engage the present sufficiently without recourse to where things began and how they were shaped in the ancient world. SBS thus has a mandate to navigate the worlds of antiquity and (post-) modernity via the compass of Scripture, to open up new paths of engagement with Africa today.
