Translation as Incarnation: The Bible in the Twenty-First-Century Global South

By Israel Kamudzandu

The publication and attention given to postcolonial work has flooded the field of academia, yet not much attention has been paid to the precolonial, premissional, and colonial eras, and receptions of the Western Missionary Bible and its impact on the colonization of Global South nations; schools in this area had to wrestle with the study of the Bible from kindergarten to college. Through vigorous readings of the New Testament and other related subjects, indigenous Christian converts demanded that the Bible needed to be translated into various vernacular and ethnic languages. The hunger for engaging the Bible in the linguistic worldview of people led to the process of translation, printing, and distribution into rural and urban centers. Hence the journey of the Bible and its reception in the Global South is what is referred to as "Vernacular Translation as Incarnation" (taken from John 1:14).
Therefore, this book is an invitation to postcolonial readers of the Bible, as well as an urgent invitation to both Europe and North America to consider having the Bible in schools so that young minds can be engaged by it. Without translations of the Bible into the vernacular, Christianity would not be growing as it is in the Global South nations, namely Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Hence, vernacular translations of the Bible are indeed incarnational.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Oct 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781498221290

Israel Kamudzandu

Israel Kamudzandu is an associate professor of New Testament studies at Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City.

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Preface

This project started with a series of Sunday School classes I was invited to facilitate in Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Kansas on the topic of Vernacular Bible and Hymnology in African-Christianity.¹ In Third World nations—more recently called Global South nations, mainly referring to Africa, Asia, and Latin America—the Bible was introduced as a colonial document written in a foreign language, the intent of which was to pacify the indigenous populace. Employed as an academic document, the Bible was to function as a civilizing instrument for the uncivilized and heathens of the Global South. This book is not about the history of colonization, but the focus is on the way God became embodied within the cultures of the Global South through a process of incarnation in the form of linguistics. Hence, translation as incarnation is the gist of this project. Inculturation, adaption, contextualization, indigenization, and embodiment of the Gospel are all anthropological and missiological terms used interchangeably to describe God’s presence in any given culture. This book asserts that without language, God does not relate to the human family.

The subject of Christianity from the Greco-Roman world has been well documented by many Bible scholars, missiologists, and Christian theologians. However, explanations of the growth and expansion of Christianity as a global religious movement have missed one of the fundamental parts of Christian revivalism in the Global South. Western missionaries and colonialists underestimated the power of God’s Word to incarnate itself in other cultures. Hence, the focus of this book is on vernacular translations of the Bible as the incarnation of God’s presence in all cultural worldviews of the world. In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the contextualization and indigenization of the Gospel of Jesus Christ happened through vernacular translations of the Bible and hymnology. Translations of the Bible and hymns into various languages of people in the Global South had enormous implications for church growth and the formation of indigenous Christian Pentecostalism and charismatic movements.

The purpose of this book is to highlight the value of translations of the Bible into people’s vernacular languages and to underline the incarnation of God’s Word as an ongoing process, regardless of foreign powers’ missionary and colonial efforts. Global South nations have an inherent capacity to learn languages, and when English, French, German, and Portuguese languages were introduced in academic education, indigenous people never failed to imbibe these new forms of communication. Language is everything, and God communicates with humanity in various linguistic forms. Beyond the spoken or written word, these linguistic forms might include dance, art, craft, drums, flutes, and composition of poems, hymns, and choruses.

Related to incarnation is also the theology of apocalypses in the vicissitudes of colonization, oppression, injustices, prejudices, segregations, and discrimination against other human beings. God has a way to incarnate within a people’s religious worldview. Incarnation as a process of God’s presence in a people’s culture is also an empowerment of humanity in terms of claiming their identity, place, and function in the economy of God. The impetus for this book stems from John 1:14–18 which hermeneutically interprets God’s revelation to the children of Israel, especially to Moses in Exodus 33–34: full of grace and truth. This revelation is not a monopoly of one culture or nation, rather all humanity is born with a sensitivity to experience God’s work in their cultural and religious worldview. Similarly, God revealed his power in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who commissioned disciples to cross the boundaries of nations with one mission of proclaiming the Gospel to all nations. Global South nations are included in this revelation. Contrary to the ideologies of early Western missionaries and colonialists, Global South nations have a rich religious worldview and a deeper understanding of God as the Creator and Supreme Being of the World.

Faith and spirituality are embedded in one’s religious-cultural worldview. By introducing European languages to Global South nations, an uneasiness was set in motion, and local people had to wrestle with a new form of communication. The wrestling blossomed into an urgent need to read, interpret, and appropriate the Bible within a people’s context(s). Hence, Jesus Christ and his Gospel were to be appropriated by Global South nations, whose cultures differed from one country to another. Spirituality and faith are not colonizing forces. Rather, they are God’s gifts given to people through belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through belief, these divine gifts are mysteriously ushered by the Holy Spirit into the hearts of people. The success, growth, and revival of Global South Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity are credited to indigenous people’s desire to fully imbibe a holistic understanding of Scripture and make it accessible in people’s mother tongues.

It is widely acknowledged that God does not manifest and communicate in a vacuum, but rather God speaks in a context. With context comes the need for vernacular translations of the Bible, and then comes the interpretation of the Gospel which leads to appropriation, formation of faith, and discipleship. In John’s annunciation of God’s Word as incarnation, people look over the entire concept of context, and when context and translation are not understood, people misinterpret, misuse, and abuse Scripture in ways that are damaging to the created order. In the Global South nations, especially in the Christian worldview, God is not just an idea, a philosophy, nor a theoretical phenomenon. God is a living God who communicates with people spiritually and within the confines of time. Therefore, this study traces and addresses the crucial process of translation within a people’s context. The study is helpful when we consider the colonial, missional, social, historical, literary, and imperial milieu in which the Bible was introduced into Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In other words, accepting the Bible was not reception, but rather it was taught in a foreign language to a people who had their own languages, religions, and cultures. The Bible remained a lifeless and oppressive document until indigenous people made sense of it and understood it in their vernaculars; then inspiration began to shape, mold, and awaken people’s desire, hunger, and thirst for meaning. Any document, context, people, culture, or worldview can be categorized as text. Written, oral, artistic, dramatic, musical, and liturgical forms fall in the category of texts. If texts are not translated, their meaning will remain opaque, inoperable, and foreign to the ear, eye, and mind of the reader.

Translations into vernacular languages provide a hermeneutical lens that is available to common people and a narrative that leaders, teachers, clergy, and laypeople can articulate their theology, faith, and spirituality without fear of being marginalized or silenced. I am aware that many people of twenty-first-century generations and technology, as well as digital readers of the Bible, may find this book to be intimidating and puzzling. That is not the goal and objective of this project. The book lays out the argument that theology, philosophy, interpretation, and the practice of vernacular translations of the Bible inevitably work together to illuminate the presence of God in the universe and in the entire global Christian faith.

The Bible, though introduced by missionaries and colonialists, is always a self-liberating book, with a voice that can only be heard by the reader in his or her own context. It is one practice to colonize other nations, but it is a different if not impossible thing to colonize the Bible. In vernacular readings and interpretation of the Bible, the meaning or implications of the Scriptures becomes a democratized exercise. Laity who may not have theological training are able to hear the Word of God in their own language and embody its meaning. Colonialists and Western missionaries assumed the position of being specialists, but they were oblivious to their need to be students in learning a new language, culture, modes of thinking, morals, ethics, and ethos of people whom they wanted to target as converts and cheap laborers. Simply put, Africa, Asia, and Latin America comprise an enormous and intricate network of cultural contexts that call on foreigners to be humble and learn the ways of the other.

This project is many in ways a testimony of the context in which I was born, reared, and educated. It is a world where I experienced deep faith, spirituality, and the essence of the Gospel as it was practiced, lived out, and shared by my parents, Esinath Chikanza- and Elijah Kamudzandu. Being a Christian is a privilege for me, and I humbly approach Scripture with a deep sense of humility as was taught by my parents. Neither of my parents was highly educated in academics, but they were practitioners of the Gospel and they lived out their theological understanding of God, resurrection, Gospel, faith, and spirituality in ways that impacted all my siblings and numerous Pentecostal-Christian believers.

This book concludes that Bible translations into a people’s language, dialect, and ethnicity are an ongoing practice. In addition, vernacular translations of the Bible in Africa, Asia, and Latin America necessitated and availed an opportunity to translate Western hymnology into local languages. Hence, the study is about both the Bible and hymnology as complimentary texts whose work and function are inseparable, especially in the formation of faith, theology, spirituality, and a life of discipleship. In other words, the divinely ordained mission which God entrusted to Jesus Christ, and which the Messiah then ordained and sent his followers into the world to proclaim, is a mission made possible through translation into people’s vernaculars. At the center of the vernacular Bible is a God whose mystery unfolds in ways hidden from hegemonic, imperialistic, self-proclaimed leaders and colonialists. Salvation is made possible and available not in foreign languages but in people’s everyday modes of communication. It is noteworthy to mention that, while the lingua franca of most Global South regions during the colonial era was English, Portuguese, French, German, or another European language, little did colonizers know that teaching indigenous people to communicate in these languages was a blessing in disguise. Hence, language is part and parcel of God’s formation and reformation of people in their contexts.

Many seminary students whom I have taught New Testament Studies and Biblical Interpretation using Global South Hermeneutics have endured the gestation of most of the things I wrote in this book. I am deeply grateful to students who enrolled in an Introduction to New Testament Studies at Saint Paul School of Theology and participated in conversations, heard narrated lectures, and posted their responses on the Moodle forum. Their insights and contributions were enormous and deeply constructive. A word of appreciation to my colleague Henry Knight who listened to me during my writing stage and offered some suggestions in the shaping of the book. I thank my editor Pierce VanDunk who went through this manuscript line by line, paragraph by paragraph, and offered fruitful suggestions and ideas that eventually grounded the entire book. Editors tell authors what might not be pleasant, and that is what makes research enriching and exciting. I deeply express my appreciation to Emily Callihan of Wipf & Stock for attending cheerfully and carefully to all the details and outcome of the book, its cover, and her tenacity in finding endorsers for this study.

Finally, I wish to express my appreciation, gratitude, and graces to my wife, Rutendo Kamudzandu, and to my three daughters, Zvikomborero, Tendai, and Fadzai for their patience, encouragement, generosity of spirit, and time, as well as the love they afforded me in the entire writing and commotion of this study.

I dedicate this book to my deceased parents, Prophetess and St. Esinath Chikanza-Kamudzandu and Father Elijah Murungweni Kamudzandu. May God grant them rest from their work of evangelism, preaching the Gospel, and deep participation in God’s mission.

1

. The hyphenated term African-Christianity captures the religious-cultural worldview of the way Christianity is perceived in Africa and in the entire Global South. Notably, Global South Christians worship and serve God’s Church with an enculturated, contextualized, and indigenous approach. In other words, culture shapes Christianity and Christianity shapes people’s religious-cultural worldview.

Colonial and Postcolonial Biblical Interpretation Series

In postmodern North America and Europe, Christianity is declining, yet in the Global South—that is, Asia, Africa, and Latin America—Christianity of all types and shapes has been emerging from years of colonialism, postcolonialism, and now a Global pandemic. Church growth in these once imperially colonized nations is burgeoning in ways never seen before. The reason for Christian growth and Church revival and revitalization revolves around the translation of the Bible into numerous vernacular languages of people, tribes, and ethnicities found in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. While the project on colonial, postcolonial, and post-pandemic Christianity, as well as racial times, is daunting, the research in this field of inquiry is fascinating. North American and European nations with their imperial hunger for power and control will never accept Global South nations as leaders of Christendom in the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. In the face of the rise of Global South nations, North America and Europe will have to wrestle with revising ancient and Reformation Bible interpretive methods in ways that align with new and emerging global Bible interpretive lenses.

In the last thirty years, the world has seen colonial empires coming to an end, but ruling-class ideas will always be used in an attempt to coerce weaker nations to embrace the official residues of missionaries from both Europe and America. Hence, this series on colonial and postcolonial biblical interpretation is a larger area of research demanding urgent address and conversations in places of higher education, especially seminaries where clergy leaders are trained. The series will continue to embrace racial, gender, colonial, decolonial, and postcolonial worldviews of the once-oppressed people whose goal is to have indigenized models of Christianity. While power is not easily surrendered, the Holy Spirit as seen, read, and experienced in Luke-Acts is indeed decolonizing both oppressors and the oppressed, forcing both sides into Holy-Spirit-formed communities of love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The twenty-first century is indeed in need of mutually lived-out relationships of respect, love, and peace. Hence, the project embarked on in this research will perhaps lead to journals, seminars, and even Bible study series for Christian disciples in Global South nations and also in North America and Europe.

Introduction

No document has catalyzed as many significant cultural changes as the Bible. Birthed in an era of cultural fusions between Judaism and the surrounding cultures, the Christian Bible has dramatically shaped innumerable people groups and influenced humanity as a whole. The Bible has been used to champion both harmful and helpful philosophies from ancient Judaism, the Roman Empire, major European powers, and countless more. Ideologically misread to justify every form of injustice, the Bible has been utilized to dominate others. Yet, regardless of how humanity has abused the Bible, God’s divine voice finds its ongoing formative entrance into people’s minds, hearts, and souls through Scripture. And in opposition to the oppressive uses and interpretations of the Bible for causes like colonialism, Christians throughout the world have employed this holy text for causes of liberation, justice, and peace.

Hence, it is proper for twenty-first-century Christians to revisit the historical and social journey of the Bible and come to terms with the ways the document is embedded with God’s liberating voice. Focusing on the example of the Global South, this book seeks to address the following questions: What was the Global South like before the introduction of the Bible? What did the Global South evolve into when the Bible was introduced through colonization, enslavement, and other outcomes of European involvement? How did translation of the Bible into vernacular languages of the Global South transform indigenous people’s appropriation of Scripture? How did vernacular translations contribute to the exponential growth of Christian spirituality in the Global South and the decline of Western Christianity in the twenty-first century?¹

The Western introductions, readings, and interpretations of the Bible by missionaries and colonialists in and around Global South nations remain intriguing to the twenty-first-century Christian world. Rarely do scholars of both Global South and Western worldviews discuss the role and influence of the Bible in educational curricula of Global South schools both before and during colonization. Europeans used the Christian Scriptures to educate indigenous people in Western ways, usually with the purpose of expunging their indigenous religion and culture and turning them into servants. Yet, around the time when the Bible began to be translated into vernacular indigenous languages in the nineteenth century, the colonial and missionary academic classroom became a sacred site of divine encounters. Guided by the stories—told in their own languages—of biblical characters like Abraham and the Apostle Paul, people in Global South nations began to report a plethora of spiritual signs, miracles, and wonders, even before they became members of any religious denomination. These divine encounters occurred inside and outside classrooms and even in worship settings.

A good example of divine encounters in the Global South is the experience of my mother, Esinath Chikanza. When she was just twelve years old, she encountered Jesus. She said Jesus taught her heavenly secrets about the power of