Doing Translation in Conflicted Multiethnic Multilingual and Multireligious Contexts

Many Bible translation projects are initiated in multiethnic, multilingual, and multi-religious contexts. Colonization has affected each of these 'multi' dynamics. Quality Bible translation processes and outcomes depend upon navigating these dynamics in ways that seek to transform colonial legacies.

Drawing on Mamdani’s analysis of the colonial system of direct and indirect rule, and his analysis of the colonial making of ‘tribe’, this paper suggests that Bible translation could be carried out in a manner that strives to transcend colonial practices and legacies by using the Contextual Bible Study method (CBS). The CBS method prioritizes life-giving purposes and uses life-giving processes that can be calibrated to address the multiethnic, multilingual, and multi-religious dynamics that characterize three entangled contexts that often come together in Bible translation projects.

One entangled context is the post-colonial church which encompasses differently colonized urban and rural locales. A second entangled context are communities where Bible translation occurs. A third entangled context are the mission agencies that are called to support Bible translation carried out by post-colonial church bodies among tribalized and minoritized ethno-linguistic groups. How can the CBS method be calibrated for each of these three contexts to facilitate emancipatory dialogue about multiethnic, multilingual, and multi-religious dynamics in the Bible and among differently entangled agents of mission? A case study will be presented engaging North American mission agencies and mission agents with a Contextual Bible Study on Genesis 14 around ethnicity, ‘tribe,’ and conflict.