From Orality to Orality

A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible

James A. Maxey, Rhoads

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9781606083246
  9781498212120
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630871239
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

In this groundbreaking work, Bible translation is presented as an expression of contextualization that explores the neglected riches of the verbal arts in the New Testament. Going beyond a historical study of media in antiquity, this book explores a renewed interest in oral performance that informs methods and goals of Bible translation today. Such exploration is concretized in the New Testament translation work in central Africa among the Vute people of Cameroon. This study of contextualization appreciates the agency of local communities--particularly in Africa--who seek to express their Christian faith in response to anthropological pauperization. An extended analysis of African theologians demonstrates the ultimate goals of contextualization: liberation and identity. Oral performance exploits all the senses in experiencing communication while performer, text, and audience negotiate meaning. Performance not only expresses but also shapes identity as communities express their faith in varied contexts. This book contends that the New Testament compositions were initially performed and not restricted to individualized, silent reading. This understanding encourages a reexamination of how Bible translation can be done. Performance is not a product but a process that infuses biblical studies with new insights, methods, and expressions.

1

Translation as Contextualization

Introduction

This chapter is extensive in the breadth of material that it covers. Its purpose is to place Bible Translation in the larger picture of discussions of mission, contextualized theology, and a selective history of Bible Translation. More provocatively, I present in this first chapter a proposal for understanding Bible Translation within a new paradigm: Bible Translation as contextualization. It is new in the sense that discussions of Bible Translation generally have not been extended beyond evangelization or church growth. The proposed alternative paradigm responds to current global discussions of identity and ideologies and in this way models contextualization. Instead of ignoring the critiques against and indifference towards Bible Translation, this chapter engages directly such challenges. The goals of this chapter will be met if the reader begins to understand Bible Translation as a theological activity that has the capacity to mutually shape and be shaped by a community’s expression of its faith in a contextually relevant way.

Bible Translation in History

When we look at the history of the world Christian movement, a subject threads its way ubiquitously throughout the centuries. Its presence is as widespread as its acknowledgment is muted. Even those who present the world Christian movement’s history to us are surprised when it is pointed out to them that a consistent activity in mission is Bible Translation. Bible Translation’s sustained role throughout history, however, is by no means singular. The agents and benefactors are multiple throughout the world and their aims, methods, and results are as varied as the languages they speak. Nevertheless, those who have recognized the impact of translation in Christianity perceive themes in which these activities can be grouped. One such theme has been rarely documented. It has been with the rise of postcolonial studies that questions have been posed that permit one to ask if Bible Translation is inherently connected to a colonial agenda, supported by theologically conservative views of the Bible. In response to such inquiries and supplementary to previously perceived views of Bible Translation, I present here a missiological interpretation of Bible Translation as contextualization.1

The first fundamental statement, therefore, is that Bible Translation is a theological enterprise.2 Moreover, it should be understood as a prime example of contextual theology. This activity underscores what has been argued since the 1960s: theology is always contextual. This contextual understanding calls into question a singular universal Christian theology. This change has permitted us to see that the contexts in which theology is done shape the theology. Our first task, then, is to describe this development of contextualization. Contextualization may be a recent word in theological discussions of the past generation, but the concept itself has been central to Christianity from its beginning. The concept accentuates the relationship of faith to its context, whether it is the socio-economic structures or the culture. In the twentieth century this concept has evolved in theological discussions, shaped by the ecclesial contexts of its dialogue. One way to understand this dialogue is to look more closely at several mission conferences within Christian traditions: Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and Conciliar Ecumenical. These conferences have discussed several important twentieth-century topics, including for our current purposes, the subject of Christianity’s relationship to culture and the varied understandings of contextualization.

Discussions of Contextualization: Conferences

One can say that there was a suspicious silence on the subject of culture for the first half of the twentieth century in mission conferences. It is suspicious because it seems that everybody (from the North) had a clear notion of what was meant by the term “culture.” Culture at the end of the nineteenth century was a term used in the singular to denote a universal (European) culture.3 Culture and civilization were interchangeable. In regard to mission, the goal in the early part of the twentieth century was to bring culture (civilization) to the uncivilized. The view was that the indigenous people of the South did not possess culture. Whatever way of life they did have was looked upon as innately evil. Mission meant for many the destruction of these evil practices, rituals, and customs.4 With the beginnings of field research in anthropology in the early twentieth century, there was a turn from this classical, universal (and singular) notion of culture to an understanding of multiple cultures.5 Although not yet a topic of mission conferences, missionaries were demonstrating a new appreciation for indigenous cultures. Their customs were not categorically dispelled as bad, but the languages and cultures were potential means of communicating the Gospel. The following paragraphs sketch the development of thinking in Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and Conciliar circles to the relationship of Christianity to its contexts.

Vatican II (1962–65) was a historic moment in Christianity. It was at Vatican II that culture began to be discussed theologically as having value, moving beyond a mono-cultural view. This followed a more optimistic view of humanity itself: “the human person . . . can achieve true and full humanity only by means of culture.”6 In regards to missionary activities, “whatever goodness is found in the minds and hearts of men [sic], or in the particular cultures and customs of peoples, far from being lost is purified, is raised to a higher level and reaches its perfection for the glory of God . . .”7

This higher view of culture and a recognition of “God’s preferential option for the poor” led to the Second General Conference of Latin American bishops in Medellin in 1968.8 The Medellin conference broadened discussions of the relationship of Christianity to culture by lifting up the socio-political and economic context in Latin America as critical to understand the relationship of Christianity to culture. This was the public beginning of the rejection of the notion of a universal theology. The participants of the Medellin conference refused to accept this notion of a dominant universal theology. Not only were people to be liberated from socio-political and economic oppression, but from theological oppression as well.

Evangelicals became more and more concerned with the direction that mission discussions were going after the integration of the Inter-national Missionary Council in the World Council of Churches in 1961 in New Delhi. In 1974 many of these Evangelicals gathered together in Lausanne, Switzerland, to begin what has become known as the Lausanne Movement. In the ensuing document on the conference, the Lausanne Covenant, the reflections of Evangelicals on Christianity’s relationship to culture, demonstrated a more positive, yet ambiguous view of culture. “Under God, the result will be the rise of churches deeply rooted in Christ and closely related to their culture. Culture must always be tested and judged by Scripture. Because men and women are God’s creatures, some of their culture is rich in beauty and goodness. Because they are fallen, all of it is tainted with sin and some of it is demonic. The Gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, but evaluates all cultures according to its own criteria...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Translation as Contextualization
• Chapter 2: Bible Translation in the Contexts of Africa
• Chapter 3: Orality, Literacy, and Performance
• Chapter 4: Literacy and Orality in Relation to the New Testament
• Chapter 5: Biblical Performance Criticism and Bible Translation
• Chapter 6: Bible Translation for Performance
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index