From Orality to Orality: A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible

From Orality to Orality

A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible

James A. Maxey

FROM ORALITY TO ORALITY

A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible

Biblical Performance Criticism Series

2

Copyright ©

2009

James A. Maxey. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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isbn

13

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978-1-60608-324-6

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-123-9

Cataloging-in-Publication data:

Maxey, James A.

From orality to orality : a new paradigm for contextual translation of the Bible / James A. Maxey

isbn

13

:

978-1-60608-324-6

xii +

222

p. ;

23

cm. —Includes bibliographic references and index.

1

. Bible—Criticism, Performance.

2

. Bible—Translating. 3. Bible, N.T.—Criticism, interpretation, etc. 4. Translating and interpreting—Camaroon. 5. Storytelling—Religious aspects—Christianity. 6. Oral Tradition. I. Title. II. Series.

BS

2555

.

5

M

28

2009

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

Biblical Performance Criticism

David Rhoads, Series Editor

The ancient societies of the Bible were overwhelmingly oral. People originally experienced the traditions now in the Bible as oral performances. Focusing on the ancient performance of biblical traditions enables us to shift academic work on the Bible from the mentality of a modern print culture to that of an oral/scribal culture. Conceived broadly, biblical performance criticism embraces many methods as means to reframe the biblical materials in the context of traditional oral cultures, construct scenarios of ancient performances, learn from contemporary performances of these materials, and reinterpret biblical writings accordingly. The result is a foundational paradigm shift that reconfigures traditional disciplines and employs fresh biblical methodologies such as theater studies, speech-act theory, and performance studies. The emerging research of many scholars in this field of study, the development of working groups in scholarly societies, and the appearance of conferences on orality and literacy make it timely to inaugurate this series. For further information on biblical performance criticism, go to www.biblicalperformancecriticism.org.

Books in the Series

Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones, editors

The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media:

Story and Performance

James A. Maxey

From Orality to Orality:

A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible

David Rhoads

Biblical Performance Criticism:

An Emerging Discipline in New Testament Studies

Forthcoming

Joanna Dewey

Orality, Scribality, and the Gospel of Mark

Pieter J. J. Botha

Orality and Literacy in Early Christianity

To Pam, Sam, Levi, Jane, and Lauren—

with great love and affection.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the Vuté community for their instruction, guidance, and unfailing friendship. This extends beyond the Vuté community to my colleagues with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon and the Yoko parish of the Roman Catholic Church. Secondly, I am grateful for the guidance of the professors at both the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and the Catholic Theological Union. Subjects explored have included a wide continuum, from Missiology to Anthropology, from New Testament studies to Contextual theologies. Thirdly, Lutheran Bible Translators has provided steady support of my work and research for twenty years—first in my MA in Linguistics and then in my PhD studies. I reserve my final acknowledgment of gratitude for my family. They have lived many of the experiences with me—from Africa and during my study program—that are discussed in this book. I thank them profoundly for accompanying me on this journey.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: Translation as Contextualization

Chapter 2: Bible Translation in the Contexts of Africa

Chapter 3: Orality, Literacy, and Performance

Chapter 4: Literacy and Orality in Relation to the New Testament

Chapter 5: Biblical Performance Criticism and Bible Translation

Chapter 6: Bible Translation for Performance

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

Preface

In the following pages I intertwine two main subjects: a proposal for an alternative paradigm for Bible translation as contextualization; a discussion of orality and biblical performance criticism as a methodology for biblical studies and its implications for translation. My research is exploratory and my findings are tentative. There is little public discussion of alternative paradigms for Bible translation, especially one associated with contextualization. My field research with translation of oral performances, both with my own and with the Vuté community in Cameroon, is in its early stages. There is a need for more experience with oral performances of biblical compositions.

Historically, critics linked Bible translation directly to literacy and evangelism, and (in)directly to colonial agendas. Those involved in Bible translation in recent centuries have often restricted their purview both in terms of communication media and theological imagination. This book asserts that such views are limited and do not reflect the rich theological heritage of Bible translation. Bible translation is presented in this book as an expression of contextualization that explores the neglected riches of the verbal arts in the New Testament. Beyond a historical study of media in antiquity, a renewed interest in oral performance informs methods and goals of Bible translation today. Such exploration is concretized in the NT translation work in central Africa among the Vuté people of Cameroon.

Contextualization as discussed in this study appreciates the agency of local communities—particularly in Africa—who seek to express their Christian faith in response to the results of human impoverishment. An extended study of African theologians demonstrates the ultimate goals of contextualization: liberation and identity. Bible translation exhibits how vernacular languages empower and equip these local communities to establish and maintain their identities by means of their cultures as articulated by their languages and also how such linguistic expression subverts the dominant languages’ control. Local communities create fresh pathways of not only responses to existing theological questions, but explore new inquiries of God and humanity.

Oral performance draws from all the senses by experiencing communication while performer, text, and audience negotiate meaning. Performance not only expresses identity but shapes it as communities express their faith in varied contexts. It is argued that the New Testament compositions were initially performed and not restricted to individual, silent reading. This understanding encourages a reexamination of how Bible translation can be done. Performance is not seen as a product but a process that infuses biblical studies with new insights, methods, and expressions. In the case study of the Vuté people of Cameroon, a New Testament translation project is reviewed as local performers exhibit their cultural values of the verbal arts in presentations of translated biblical passages informed by a renewed interest in the spoken word.

Introduction

From Orality to Orality

The pages that follow tell a story, a circuitous story. Sometimes we think that things have always been the way they are. Many Christians in North America and Europe understand the Bible to be a literary production like many other books produced today. They understand that access to the Bible is uniquely available by literacy, a type of individual, silent, deciphering of written code. With such assumptions the transmission of the Bible into other parts of the world—for example Africa—has been accompanied by the agenda of literacy. This has been done with minimal attention to what is often a predominant part of everyday life: the verbal arts are often the means of communication. People speak and people hear. Important stories are artfully told, and communities participate in this storytelling that is part of who they are, their identity.

This book sets out to describe the ways in which the Bible—specifically the New Testament—was composed to be heard and to be experienced in a communal setting. This oral setting is not so different than the oral settings found in places such as Africa today. When this book’s title states From Orality to Orality, that is precisely what is intended: from the orality of the first-century Mediterranean world of the New Testament to the twenty-first-century oral contexts of much of the world today. The activities of Bible Translation¹ have for centuries presupposed literacy rather than orality as the predominant means of communication for the Bible’s creation, transmission, and reception. I suggest that this understanding distorts both historical and anthropological evidence. The Bible was for the most part created, transmitted, and received in a predominantly oral context. This should affect how we go about Bible Translation today.

A central focus of this book is oral performance. The use of the word performance might distract people into thinking about disingenuous entertainment. Dramatic interpretation is what is meant. But there is more. Performance is a social activity in which community identity is shaped. Performance, therefore, can be understood as a verbal art as well as a social drama.² Performance is understood throughout this book as a sincere embodiment of communication. It is often modified by oral to indicate that although communication presupposes body movement there is a particular collaboration of the spoken word with such embodiment. Verbal art might be another appropriate phrase that communicates multi-sensory communication and reception. Oral performance in relation to Bible Translation is not an invitation for individual aggrandizing. The locale of performance may change the formality of presentation but biblical performances are conscious of the sacral nature of the experience.

A New Paradigm

For the past several centuries Bible Translation has been predominantly understood as a tool of evangelism. In more recent times, northern-hemisphere Christians have viewed their participation in Bible Translation in the southern hemisphere as a helping hand to those Christians. It was offered as a church growth or church maturity tool. In this twenty-first century, however, we recognize that such seemingly benevolent, neutral acts are called into question. In fact the larger structure—paradigm—of Bible Translation is being questioned in terms of the one-sidedness of who is doing Bible Translation and for what purposes.³ This book offers an alternative paradigm of Bible translation. It is in a sense new, but only because we have forgotten our history. Bible Translation has never been simply a tool of evangelism or church growth. It has been a means of forming and sustaining a community’s identity and, at times, of liberating a community from oppressive dominant structures. This book seeks to respond to twenty-first century critics of Bible Translation being an oppressive part of colonialism that denigrates the oral cultures around the world.

Understood from this new paradigm, Bible Translation is neither a neutral nor a simple activity. Moreover, Bible Translation is ideologically motivated.⁴ The challenges and complexities of translation involve issues of power and issues of effective communication. All translation is interpretation. As a result, all translations reflect to varying degrees the social locations of those who are involved in the translation. Despite great acclamations of objectivity, this is not obtainable. Furthermore, modes of communication must not be understood as neutral. There have been significant studies of the differences between orality and literacy. Unfortunate binary discussions of these modes of communication have distracted researchers from the complexities of the potential interfaces between orality and literacy. Proponents of Bible Translation have vaunted the introduction of literacy by Bible Translation. The benefits of literacy should not be neglected. However, postcolonial studies have questioned whether the oral ethos has been sacrificed in this pursuit of literacy.⁵ The situation ought not to devolve into another dichotomous discussion of literacy vs. orality. However, there is a significant myopia in ignoring the riches of oral communities. This has been particularly true with Bible Translation that has historically set its goal to a literary conversion of the population. Whereas literacy offers significant benefits, it should not be at the expense of oral appreciation.

As I returned to academia in the United States, I began to seek for myself a fresh missiological understanding of Bible Translation. Although such research was initiated for my own reasons, I soon began to see how many in America view Bible Translation in a limited way. Many individuals, churches, and organizations understand Bible Translation activities in Africa, South America, Asia, and the South Pacific as an instrument of evangelization with the goal of conversion to Christianity. Others view Bible Translation as a benevolent means to assist churches outside of North America and Europe to grow in the Christian faith. Another set of Americans (and Europeans) find Bible Translation to be an embarrassing (or detrimental) activity left over from an earlier era. My problem was that I was not satisfied with these limited views of Bible Translation. I needed an alternative; I saw that missiology needed another understanding of Bible Translation. The following chapters pursue such an alternative paradigm for Bible Translation.

Insights into these issues of Bible Translation come from understanding all Christian theologies as contextually shaped. Instrumental to the shaping of these theologies has been the Scriptures in a variety of languages. There is a dynamic relationship between the Bible and the people who engage in the Bible. The effects of this dynamic relationship are not limited to the people; the Bible itself is affected. The effects of such interactions benefit those of other social-linguistic groups. In this way the benefits to numerous groups can be viewed as mutual. Peoples of varied cultures and languages have shaped the way Bibles have been translated and Bibles have shaped the way people live out their faith. Furthermore, the expressions of faith extend to other communities of faith to challenge, diversify, and enrich all the communities involved. No longer can we understand Bible Translation as simply a gift to minority language communities. Christian communities elsewhere are in (desperate) need to experience how various communities articulate and live out their faith. In fact, given that the majority of the Christians of the world reside in the southern hemisphere, it is no longer accurate to limit Bible Translation to evangelization in these regions. Moreover, instead of an outdated accessory to contemporary discussions of contextual theologies, Bible Translation can be viewed as an integral part to how local communities construct local theologies.

An alternative paradigm for Bible Translation as contextualization responds to recent postcolonial critiques of missionary Christianity in general and the activity of Bible Translation in particular. Unfortunately, those from North America and Europe who are involved in Bible Translation in the southern hemisphere have not in general taken such critiques seriously. While discussions of new theories and methods of translation are being discussed by these translation agencies in terms of religious benefits, there is little dialogue concerning socio-economic challenges and discussions of power in the relationships between these agencies and host communities. My proposed paradigm of contextualization for Bible Translation seeks to listen to these critiques and respond to them in fresh ways.

Perhaps the most convincing argument for the contextual value of Bible Translation comes from those who use such translations. The agency of these communities is evident as they approach the Bible as a community of faith. This includes how they interpret and experience the Bible, and how they understand issues of power in relation to the Bible. Key to these issues is the notion of community. Whereas many Bible Translation associations from North America and Europe might envision individual access to the Bible as the goal, most of the world lives in community, with a collective sense of identity. In order to be contextually sensitive to this reality, community involvement in Bible Translation and the experience of the Bible become central.

The History of Vuté New Testament Translation

My familiarity with the variety of issues discussed in this book comes as a result of my experiences in Bible Translation for more than twenty years. Whereas this experience began in and has most recently returned to contexts of American educational institutions, the majority of my experience is a result of living in Cameroon, Africa during the period 1991–2003. I write about Bible Translation in Africa as a non-African. Yet, I can no longer understand myself as only American. My Vuté (VOO-tay) brothers and sisters have been influential, and their interactions with me have changed me. I retain aspects of an outsider, but I have also developed deep relationships that have resulted in responsibilities in the Vuté community that reflect a nuanced outsider-insider role. Such a role causes me to refrain from a simplified romantic view of life in Africa. At the same time, my experience permits me to appreciate the quality of agency of the Vuté community within the limits of historical and contemporary contexts of what I describe below as anthropological pauperization. This brief description of my social location and self-understanding is supplemented in chapter six.

Although called by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon (ELCC) for the purpose of Bible Translation with the Vuté community, many other activities were related to this overall purpose. As an oral language, the Vuté community asked me to study their language to help them develop an alphabet and literacy program for their language. Besides the translation of the Bible, the community asked me to facilitate the translation of other materials: religious (liturgies, hymnbooks, catechisms), health, agricultural, and cultural materials, along with original literature in Vuté. We were invited to live in the town of Yoko, the political center of the Vuté community, a community spread over a wide geographic area. By April of 1992 I moved to Yoko with my wife and two young children. As the years went by, not only did my family grow by two more, but we grew more integrated into community life in Yoko. After ten years of living with the Vuté community we knew that the friendships—and in many ways the kinships—that were created were lifelong. In 2002 my family moved to the north of the country to the national offices of the ELCC in response to the request of the presiding bishop. My new role was to oversee sixteen translation and literacy projects of the ELCC—including Vuté. The challenges came from all directions: remote communities struggling to maintain their translation and literacy programs; demanding international partners who wanted financial accountability; a growing national church seeking the best way to use the riches of their diverse languages and cultures.

One way to trace the history of Bible Translation with the Vuté people is with the Gospel of Mark. The first efforts towards Bible Translation in the Vuté community can be attributed to two young Vuté Lutheran pastors who approached in 1969 the newly established Bible Society of Cameroon. Yet even this early request must be placed in the larger context of both the ELCC and the Yoko parish of the Catholic Church. Pastors Songsare and Kouri presented their request by making reference to their aunts and grandmothers in rural villages who were not able to follow the hymns and scripture readings in languages other than Vuté. Pastor Songsare later became President of the ELCC.⁶ Once a provisionary alphabet was established, work began on the translation of Mark’s Gospel. This eventually resulted in a 1988 test edition. Although exegetical help was provided by expatriates, the actual translation was done by Martin Yaya, at the time a local elementary teacher at the ELCC primary school.⁷ Soon after the printing of this test edition, Father Lachenaud, a French priest in the Vuté community, printed the three-year lectionary that included the translation work of several Catholic lay volunteers who translated lectionary lessons.⁸ I was involved in the remaining editions of the translation of Mark’s Gospel. The first of these was a revision of the 1988 Yaya version that was done by Alfred Oumarou and Lazare Kouadjinlo and printed in 1997. This was the beginning of ecumenical translations with translators from both the Lutheran and Catholic churches. Slight revisions were made to Mark by Oumarou and his eventual primary Catholic counterpart, Jean Nogoadjéré. It was printed in a collection of all four Gospels received by the Vuté community in a celebration in December 1999. The feedback from these earlier translations was incorporated into the final manuscript of the entire New Testament that was published in 2007.

Translation Assumptions and Methodologies

I was the exegete for the past three editions of Mark’s Gospel as well as the entire New Testament in the Vuté translation project of Cameroon. I present some of my presuppositions for this translation work below. Full-time translation began with me in 1997. Our first visit to the Vuté region was in 1991. In the interval between our arrival and full-time translation work, we concentrated on activities to learn the Vuté language and culture. It was primarily a time for us to build relationships with the Vuté community in general and the Christian communities in particular. Our focus on language learning helped us appreciate the intricacies of the language as well as build relationships. We spent over four years in this pre-translation phase.⁹ One of the important tools in learning the Vuté language and culture was listening to and studying Vuté folktales. I noticed that certain Vuté were recognized by their communities for their gifted storytelling.

One of the accompanying activities of this pre-translation phase (as well as later phases) was the training of literacy teachers and the production of literacy materials. The question that we posed to ourselves was: What good will a translated New Testament do if the Vuté people cannot read their own language? It was assumed without any doubt that literacy was the only means of access to a translated New Testament. Our training in the USA, as well as workshops in Cameroon, reinforced this assumption. Only in the mid-1990s were methods for access to Scriptures through non-literacy ever discussed—and this only as ancillary to the essential written word. The results of the Protestant Reformation and the post-Gutenberg ethos were so well established in Bible Translation circles that there was not even an evaluation of the value of oral performance in conjunction with the translated New Testament except as a preliminary pre-literate stage.

While working with Oumarou and Nogoadjéré on translation we followed these basic steps: do an exegetical study of an entire New Testament book; draft a translation; revise the draft with comments from my study of the draft in comparison with the exegetical study notes; revision of draft with a representative group of reviewers;¹⁰ test the revised draft with people in the representative community who had little prior contact with the translation;¹¹ have a Bible society representative check the most recent draft (in comparison to the Greek text). What is striking to me as I look back at these procedures is that almost every step involved an auditory reception of the text. This reality is in stark contrast to how I understood the ultimate goal of the translation: that all Vuté would have access to this translation by means of literacy. An auditory reception was considered second best. At times this blind spot was ridiculously evident, such as when we discussed the capitalization of certain (divine) words to distinguish them from common uses: for example, Spirit (as in God’s Spirit) with spirit (human or anti-human). Sometimes a passage would need an explanatory note to help a Vuté understand cultural or religious differences between first-century Palestine and the Vuté culture. This information was placed in footnotes. The translators and I knew that such notes would not be read in worship services at churches. They would only instruct a sophisticated reader and not a listening audience. These examples are meant to show that on a certain level the translators and I were aware of the literacy bias that accompanied our translation and how this bias was incongruent with the fact that most of the people would only hear the translation. Not once did I lead the translators into discussions of how the issues of aural reception might affect the translation. In fact, during my own training—both in Bible and linguistics for translation—I do not remember anybody indicating to me that the Bible was intended primarily to be heard in community and that this fact should shape the way that we do translation.

A distinct point should be made in relation to the above methodology and communication models. The presupposed communication model from which I taught translation principles in Cameroon has been described as the conduit or code model.¹² Numerous times when I explained this model I would draw two circles within two squares on the chalkboard. The squares represented distinct language differences (in this case Greek and Vuté). The identical circles represented the meaning contained within the linguistic forms. The task of the translator, according to this model, is to discover the meaning (note the singular) and remove it from its linguistic form and then transfer this identical meaning into a different linguistic form.

Several assumptions are made here in relation to communication: 1) one is able to separate meaning from form; 2) one is able to discover the meaning—assumed as the intended meaning of the original biblical author; 3) meaning is connected to the language and more specifically to the text. As I will demonstrate in the following chapters, these assumptions are misplaced. Form does shape meaning. Discovery of the original meaning proves to be elusive and often reveals as much about the