Facilitating Local Theology and Contextualization Via Inference-Based Translation

Graham S. Ogden (2002) states that “Bible translation is a theological enterprise built on the incarnational model. It seeks to give flesh to the Word of God in a new cultural environment.” Indeed, the Bibles that translators produce are the foundations upon which local churches base their own theology and contextualization efforts. Yet, the “theological enterprise” of the translation facilitator or exegetical advisor (who is often trained in the western European tradition) inevitably mediates the final Scripture product. Thus, it is incumbent upon those of us who minister in Bible translation to consider how the theory and practice of translation can better facilitate – or at least hinder less – local theologizing among the communities we serve. I suggest that meaning-based translation, though still widely used, is ill-suited for the task due to the centrality of identifying the (singular) meaning of a text to the code model of communication. The result is “an essentially colonial approach to communicating God’s truth” (Shaw 2010) that is heavily influenced by the translator’s theology. Inference-based translation, founded upon the relevance theory of communication, more robustly addresses the challenge by (1) attempting to recreate the historical reception of the text by its original audience, (2) permitting multiple implications from a given text, and (3) preserving weak communication that effects spiritual transformation.