Prof. John Mbiti, Dialogue, and Bible Translation

Yesterday I went to a talk by the eminent Kenyan theologian John Mbiti. The rather long title of the talk was 'Spontaneous Dialogue between African Religion and Christianity through Evangelization and Bible Translation: Some Observations'. The host was the University of Nairobi, but due to student unrest against interference in their elections, it was moved to Tangaza College (quite handy for me!). I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow account, but mention some of what I found particularly interesting.

One of Mbiti's central theses is that 'African Religion' (he spoke of it as if it were monolithic) prepared the way for Christianity (quote from his handout):

"African belief in God existed before the arrival of missionaries. They did not bring God to Africa, rather it is God who brought them here. African religiosity was very receptive to Christian message and enabled the message to make sense, to sink into spiritual soil.

New element was naming of JESUS CHRIST as messenger of the God in whom Africans already believed."

What was of particular interest to me was his section on 'Bible Translations as facilitators of Encounter and Dialogue'. He congratulated the "Enormous translation achievement into 718 African language...", and mentioned that many Africans hear rather than read the Bible. He then had a nice way of describing Bible translation, as an 'exercise in inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue' - we have to dig into the meaning of the Biblical words, and also (and this is where the dialogue comes in) into the meanings of the words in the local language, the language being translated into. He has had to come face to face with this, having recently (in his late 70s!) done a translation of the New Testament into his own mother tongue, Kikamba (the 3rd such translation, I think).

What he means by this is that the religious vocabulary of a language which doesn't have a Bible translation will reflect the belief system of the people that speak it. Using those words in a Christian context therefore results in some sort of dialogue. How are we to understand these words in a Christian context? For example he said, in response to a question, that he didn't like sin. He went on to say it was a most troublesome word to translate, the find the right terms for, and he had to use different words at times.

Many might at this point respond that it would not be better to use these 'traditional' words. For example the first Bible translators into Zulu were most exercised about the appropriate word for 'God'. Some were not happy with the word (U)nkulunkulu, meaning 'the great, the great', being the creator, but also having grown on a reed. However, it was used in the Bible, and now, according to Hermanson, the word is seen by Zulu Christians as being the proper word for God. And before anyone judges that, the English word 'God' wasn't a Christian word either, but it seems to work just fine. In fact, of one Mbiti's points yesterday was that 'all' African languages used the traditional word for God in the Bible. Actually, this is not quite correct, as there are some exceptions, such as Kalenjin, where the original word for God also means 'sun', and some did not want an apparent confusion in the Bible. But it is generally true - we read of Mungu, Nyasaye and Ngai in Swahili, Luo and Kikuyu Bibles.

We all understand the world with terms we are used to - anything new needs to be added by building on to that knowledge, not rejecting it wholesale. If such understanding is ignored, it doesn't just disappear, but remains (mainly) untouched by the Gospel.

So, it was an interesting talk, stimulating some thought. Whether you agree that African religions revealed God or not, waiting for the revelation of Jesus Christ, there is no doubt that we come to a new faith through the prisms of what came before. Which means that, for a Bible translator, it is of the utmost importance to understand the true use and meaning of the words one is translating with.