Beyond Translation: The Work of the Judsons in Burma.
Baptist History and Heritage 2007, Spring, 42, 2
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Publisher Description
Professor Lamin Sanneh of Yale University is an enthusiastic proponent of biblical translation as a significant component in the worldwide expansion of Christianity. (1) According to Sanneh, biblical translation led to the indigenous discovery of Christianity, the reverse of the Christian discovery of indigenous cultures that fueled the missionary-sending movement in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He noted in his works that especially when the indigenous name for God along with indigenous ideas and values were used in translation, Christian expansion occurred as colonialism ended; so this expansion was truly indigenous in organizational structure, worship expression, and theology, instead of received from colonial occupiers. "Where it was undertaken, Bible translation became the vehicle of indigenous cultural development and the basis of establishing churches.... Grammars and dictionaries existed ... for the great majority of the languages of the world, we should recall, by virtue of the missionary movement, and the effect of those linguistic resources on internal developments and options in the affected cultures cannot be emphasized enough." (2)