Mwandayi, Towards a new reading of the Bible in Africa – spy exegesisGarbo told his German handlers that it was just a feint meant to draw Ger-
man troops away from the "real" attack to the south.^13- Study of the Media
The work inside intelligence agencies is so diversified, while some
would be busy collecting information from local citizens or from foreign
countries where they would be operating from, others would be sitting
in offices and busy studying scientific journals, newspapers, corporation
annual reports, yearbooks or any other publications that touch on politi-
cal, economic, technical, social or scientific matters. Such information is
classified as open intelligence and specialists trained in this area are
assigned to such work. While ordinary readers are at most not able to
read between the lines of a newspaper or a book, these specialists are
able to decipher a lot of information. Others would be busy listening to
the radio or watching TV to acquire intelligence.
- The Bible as a source of intelligence
While vital information is often sourced from secular sources, the Bible
too has not been spared as a source of intelligence. Dunlop captures an
incident in 1918 when British forces wanted to take Jericho which was in
the hands of the Turks. A stumbling block, however, to such a move was
a village called Michmash which acted as defence centre protecting Jeri-
cho for it was situated on a high hill and heavily fortified. It occurred to
one young officer that Michmash was a familiar name in the Bible and
so he searched for it. In opening 1 Samuel 13-14 he realized that the
Israelites had surprised the Philistines by making use of a hidden pass.
Since the Bible stated further on how to find this hidden pass, the young
officer made use of this age-old intelligence report to lead his fellow
comrades in the surprise attack against the Turks and indeed the Turks
were defeated.^14
(^13) Grabianowski, How Spies Work.
(^14) Cf. Dunlop, This Business of Spying, 96.