Question cocerning the native term for god(s) and imported Christianity

[M. Paul Lewis]

Jimmy:

You might take a look at:

Sanneh, Lamin. 1989. Translating the message. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

and / or 

Sanneh, Lamin. 2003. Whose religion is Christianity? The gospel beyond the 
west. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Sanneh, an African theologian and historian teaching at Yale, looks at the 
history of Bible translation and proposes that using the local name(s) for 
God plays a significant role in how readily Christianity is accepted and 
becomes enculturated in any given setting.
There are disagreements among Bible translators (and Christians generally) 
about how the name(s) of God should be treated, with some arguing that the 
Judeo-Christian God of the Bible is clearly different from any local deity 
and so using the local name is confusing and theologically wrong, probably 
leading to misunderstandings of the nature of God as expressed in the 
Bible. The Jewish tradition, of course, is that The Name itself is sacred 
and so not really translatable nor appropriately used in print (as I have 
done here) except through substitutions and metaphorical allusions. 
Others (like Sanneh) argue that the local terms can be re-invested with 
the theological concepts of the Bible and thus make Christianity more 
easily translatable and transferable across cultures.
I'm not aware of any studies that test these claims but I haven't done any 
real study in that area. Sanneh give some examples.
Hope this helps,
Paul
*****************
M. Paul Lewis, PhD.
Editor, Ethnologue / International Sociolinguistics Coordinator
SIL International
7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd.
Dallas, TX 75236

Voice: (972) 708-7521
Fax: (972) 708-7589
Cell: (817) 703-8361



Chun Jimmy Huang <huangc20 at UFL.EDU> 
Sent by: Indigenous Languages and Technology <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
08/28/2008 02:50 PM
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[ILAT] Question cocerning the native term for god(s) and imported 
Christianity






Tabe (greetings),

I have been looking at a copy of Dutch-English-Siraya St. Mattew's 
for Siraya language revitalization (an indigenous Austronesian 
language in Taiwan). It was edited by the Dutch missionary Daniel 
Gravius in 1661. What I have found is that when translating the 
bible to Siraya, Gravius had kept the native term that referred to 
god in general, "alid," and used it to refer to the Christian god. 
Later I realized that the same applied to other indigenous 
languages in Taiwan. That is, the Presbyterian missionaries that 
came to Taiwan all kept the native terms for god(s) and 
incorporated them into their Christian missions.

Curiously, on the other hand, the Spanish Catholic priests who 
went to the Philippines around the same time had replaced the 
native terms for god(s) with "Dios".

so the different choices in terms of whether appropriating the 
native religious terms into Christianity or not (which may lead to 
significant sociolinguistic consequences). It makes me wonder if 
such difference in choice is pertinent to (Presbyterian) 
Protestant vs. Catholics and/or Dutch vs. Spanish.

I'd much appreciate if anyone can share some insights from the 
American experience or from other regions.

madag ki alilid (thanks very much)!

Chun (Jimmy) Huang
PhD candidate,
Linguistics, University of Florida
Special assistant,
Tainan Ping-pu Siraya Culture Association

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