discovering missions - Southern Nazarene University

245187 Disc Missions ins 9/6/07 1:04 PM Page 114
114 Intercultural Communication
rison began Bible translation almost immediately after he arrived in China in
1807 even though it would take seven years for him to see his first convert.
American Board of Commissioners’ missionaries reached Hawaii (then
called the Sandwich Islands) in 1820. They so successfully planted and indigenized
the church that they were able to withdraw after 50 years. Authorities in
Hawaii still maintain memorials to these missionaries, including some of the
original missionary homes. One element in those missionaries’ indigenization
strategy was that of devising a written form of the Hawaiian language so they
could translate the Bible. In more recent times, medical missionary Evelyn
Ramsey became so burdened to produce a Bible concordance for a language of
Papua New Guinea that she reduced her hospital operating room schedule in
order to have more time to work on the project.
Discussions over Bible translations often swirl around questions of dynamic
equivalence. Dynamic equivalence translation attempts to capture the meaning
of entire thoughts expressed in the source manuscript. Dynamic equivalence,
also called functional equivalence, emphasizes readability while stopping
short of being a paraphrase. Formal equivalence translation, on the other hand,
translates a text word by word. Which kind of Bible translation is best? Does
one aim for a word-for-word translation that stays as close to the Greek and
Hebrew word order and grammar as the target language will allow? Or, does
one seek to translate the meaning of larger units such as phrases and sentences?
The answers one gives to those questions will be influenced by the translator’s
doctrine of inspiration of Scripture. For instance, someone who believes in verbal
inspiration of Scripture (that the Holy Spirit dictated every word) will not
be as comfortable with dynamic equivalence as will someone who believes that
the Holy Spirit inspired the thoughts of the biblical writers and allowed them
to use their own wording.
As has been noted, critics of Christian missionaries have sometimes accused
them of destroying cultures. Bible translation does just the opposite.
Small cultural groups whose language exists only in oral form are in danger of
having their language fade away. Putting a language into written form and producing
documents in it as significant as Scripture can give a language longterm
viability as well as fueling healthy pride within a people group. Ironically,
some Bible translators have been criticized for retarding the integration of cultural
groups into the larger global culture because they have encouraged those
people to hold on to their local language!
The Willowbank Report produced by the 1978 Consultation on Gospel
and Culture held in Bermuda said that two formidable obstacles often hinder