We are very sorry to be saying goodbye to Floris Solleveld, who has been the postdoctoral research associate working with the Bristol team on the Global Bible project for the last eighteen months.
Floris has made a splendid contribution to the project since joining us in September 2023. Among other tasks, he led on the Translating Colonialism conference, writing the call for papers and helping define its major theme. He has been active in searching out new and exciting archival sources in many, extended trips to archives in the UK, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. He has written a series of lively blog posts about these adventures, which you can read on this blog.
He now has a major article forthcoming with Global Intellectual History, which demonstrates his learning and scholarship and the rich possibilities for researchers accessing the linguistic resources of missionary and bible society archives. Look out for that soon.
For the next six months, Floris will be at the University of Amsterdam with a Senior Fellowship from the Vossius Centre for History of the Humanities and Sciences and an Allard Pierson Fellowship at the Amsterdam University Library Special Collections. Within that period he hopes to finish the revised manuscript of his book. In the fall he will be at the Warburg Institute in London with a Frances Yates Short-Term Fellowship.
Farewell Floris – and all the best for your future career.
Last week, international delegates from around the world met for the Translating Colonialism conference at Westminster College, University of Cambridge.
The conference was the major event for the second year of the Global Bible project, and has been over a year in the planning and thinking.
Congratulations and thank you to everyone who joined us for this event!
Delegates to the Translating Colonialism Conference, Westminster College Cambridge, 7-8 November 2024.
Papers were organised into panels which corresponded roughly to geographical and chronological themes, though the range and diversity of topics and approaches was a key feature of the conference.
The conference began with a short presentation by the Global Bible team, both the Münster strand led by Felicity Jensz and Michael Wandusim (who was unfortunately not able to attend) and the Bristol strand, with Hilary Carey, Floris Solleveld, and Mei Mei Cheung. This outlined the origins of the project and its focus on three case study regions in colonial West Africa, Oceania, and the Arctic, but with the conference extending that to include participants presenting on bible translation in China, Russia, India and across a wider time frame, from the early Christian era to the modern day.
For the first panel, Daniel Jeyaraj (Liverpool Hope) and Hepzibah Israel (Edinburgh) took us to Tamil Nadu. Jeyaraj discussed the Danish Lutheran missionaries who undertook the first translations into Tamil in the Danish colony of Tranquebar. Israel analysed the translated bible for its materiality and as an icon for the translation process, with a series of striking illustrations including Bible colporteurs and Bible women in colonial India.
Delegates reviewing the drawings by Manfred Wkeng Aseng at the Translating Colonialism conference.
The second panel included a number of technological challenges and included a presentation from Benjamin Weber on behalf of the Münster digital humanities team on the missionary map. The missionary map is one of the outputs from the Global Bible project, building on an initial template from the Book of a Thousand Tongues, edited by Eric North (1938) and later by Eugene Nida (1972), with permission from the United Bible Society. There was a lively discussion of aspects of the map as a tool for future researchers, with valuable contributions made by Neil Rees (United Bible Society).
Two artistic commissions followed this presentation. Leeza Awojobi, a Bristol-based poet and storyteller, provided a poem and video reflection on the heritage of her family, originally from the former German colony of Cameroon and her ‘lost’ mother tongue of Kpwe (Mokpwe). This was followed by the work of the New Guinea artist Manfred Wkeng Aseng, and the coming of Anglican missions to his home place of Kaironk in the highlands, depicted using traditional images.
Manfred Wkeng Aseng, drawing of his brother’s travels from Kaironk in the PNG highlands (bottom right corner) to Simbai, Madang, Popendetta and St Paul’s and St Peter’s cathedral in Dogura (top right corner).
Onesimus Ngundu, for Cambridge University Library, presented on the library and archives of the British and Foreign Bible Society. This was followed by presentations on aspects of translation from two different times and perspectives: Tyler Horton (Cambridge) on strategies for translating the Hebrew term ruah (רוּחַ) ( ‘wind’ ‘breath’ ‘spirit’) in the Septuagint, and Uchenna Oyali (Abuja) on the changing meaning of nsọ (‘holiness’/ sacred/ unclean), a word with both positive and negative connotations, in Igbo bible translation.
For the final session of the day, Brian Stanley (Edinburgh) analysed the meaning of the term ‘heathen’ and questioned whether the derogatory connotations of this term had any real world impact on the social demarcation of race in colonial societies. Laura Rademaker (ANU, Canberra) took us to post-colonial era in supposedly decolonised Australia. Through her analysis of the bilingual school policy in the Northern Territory she noted the long tail of missionary education, which persisted long after the formal work of missions in settler countries had passed. Mia Jacobs (Bristol) analysed the meaning of biblical references to menstruation in Leviticus and the woman with the twelve-year flow (Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48) to question pejorative interpretations of the status of menstruation in both the ancient world and today.
We enjoyed an excellent conference dinner at Galleria in Cambridge – readying us for another day of talks.
De Valera Botchway (Cape Coast) led the morning discussion with a challenge to understand the full meaning of traditional religious terms, as they were translated into new biblical contexts. His example was the Tiwi (Akan) term nyamesom pa which he argued was mistranslated to mean ‘religion’ as a practice set apart from other parts of life. He argued that traditionally there was no such distinction, and that translation into a western idiom undercut older life- and knowledge-ways. John Ekem (Accra) examined the earliest mother tongue translaters of the bible on the Gold Coast through the work of Christian Protten and Jacobus Capitein. He argued that they were more than translaters but necessarily acted as cultural mediators providing dynamic interpretations of language to meet the new needs of the times. Toon van Hal (Leuven), analysing the compilation of translations of the Lord’s Prayer, explained that this practice reflected in miniature the global bible project, and provided insights into the developing understanding of global languages, and the relationship between scholarly and mission-driven linguistics.
For the sixth panel, Holger Strutwolf (Münster) returned us to the earliest centuries of Christianity, pointing out through a rich selection of examples, that issues of translation and the editing of scripture are not new but are inherent in the transmission of scripture into new languages. In two complementary papers, Lisa Kerl (Münster) examined the role of German-speaking missionaries and the challenge of translating the bible into classical Chinese in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; Anastasia Akulich (Leeds) considered the work of Russian Orthodox missionaries and their close engagement with Chinese Orthodox Christians and the extent to which the latter were effectively independent agents in the work of translation.
James Wyld. The World: designed to show the languages and dialects into which the BFBS has translated the scriptures. 2nd ed, 1841
The final session brought together papers from the two global bible project teams. Floris Solleveld outlined how the global translation project of the BFBS and affiliated societies resulted in a virtual as well as a physical world map of languages, as well as in massive repositories of linguistic data. Felicity Jensz examined the connections between German and British Bible Societies in colonial West Africa, highlighting the significant achievement and contribution of mother tongue translators to the present day. Finally, Judith Becker provided a summing up and review of the proceedings across two days of intense discussion.
The final activity for delegates was to take the short walk to Cambridge University Library to visit a display of items from the British and Foreign Bible Society. Selected by Floris Solleveld, these highlighted the work of Indigenous and mother tongue translators from many cultures, as well as archival and printed objects showing the history and progress of individual bible translation projects, as well as the 1841 copy of Wyld’s Map of the world, with all the languages into which the BFBS had translated the bible.
Hilary Carey has published a new book with LangSci Press:
The Colonial Bible in Australia: Scripture translations by Biraban and Lancelot Threlkeld, 1825-1859.
This book provides an extended introduction to the scripture translations of Biraban, an Awabakal man, and the missionary Lancelot Threlkeld. It examines Threlkeld’s linguistic field work in Raiatea prior to coming to New South Wales. It places the translations he undertook in the context of Australian missionary linguistics and the rapid advance of the settler frontier, for which he was a key eyewitness. It analyses the motivation and collaboration between Biraban and Threlkeld in the light of discoveries of new manuscripts, including that of the Gospel of St Matthew, as well as Threlkeld’s personal diary, neither of which have previously been analysed. The review includes a linguistic and ethnographic analysis of the complete corpus of Biraban and Threlkeld’s collaboration. It includes a complete list of the Threlkeld manuscripts and the many printed editions, including those available online. For historical purposes, it includes a copy of the unique standalone edition of the Gospel of Saint Luke, presented by the editor, James Fraser, to the British and Foreign Bible Society. The original is now in Cambridge University Library. It also includes a full digitisation of Threlkeld’s autograph manuscript, illuminated by Annie Layard, in Auckland City Library.
You can download a pdf completely free from LangSci Press.
Alternatively, if you would like a hard copy in order to enjoy the facsimile editions of the John Fraser edition of Biraban and Threlkeld’s Gospel of Saint Luke, or the original manuscript, written by Threlkeld and illuminated by Annie Layard, you can buy a copy from Amazon. Just follow the link.
The Global Bible project is focussing on three case study regions: the Arctic, Australia and Oceania and West Africa. This blog relates to missions to the Inuit people of the Arctic. After the defeat of the United Kingdom of Denmark Norway in the Napoleonic wars, the British and Foreign Bible Society was more actively involved in supporting and publishing translations into the Inuit languages of Greenland and British North America.
In 1821, English readers were encouraged by remarkable news from the Moravian missions in Labrador. In their ‘Monthly Extracts’, the Bible Society reported that the Moravian missionaries in Okkak, Labrador, August 8, 1821, thanked the Society for the ‘valuable present of more copies of the New Testament in the Esquimaux language’ (Latrobe 1821). From Nain, there was a report of an even more practical and enthusiastic reception. Brother Benjamin Kohlmeister (1756-1844), wrote that ‘several of our Esquimaux’ had decided ‘of their own accord’ to make a collection of seal blubber for the Society (Kohlmeister 1821: 103). Some brought whole seals, others smaller sections in the name of their children. Having received their own version of the Bible, they now wished to see the work continued for peoples elsewhere.
They begged me to send this collection of blubber (yielding 30 gallons of oil) to those generous friends who printed the Bibles for them, that more heathen might be presented with that book ‘so precious above all things.’
Kohlmeister’s letter was soon copied by other evangelical journals (Christian Observer 1821: 787) as a particularly pleasing response to the British and Foreign Bible Society which had funded and shipped the ‘Esquimaux Bible’ to the Moravian missions in North America.
At one level, the Moravian report is a strong indication of the agency of the new Moravian Christians in Newfoundland. It also reflected the ethos of the Bible Society, which discouraged the gratuitous distribution of Bibles, even among the very poor, in favour of a subscription. In England, a local committee (Dudley 1821: 412) reported, ‘The readiness of the poor to make their periodical payments is most gratifying.’ The Bible was a privilege to be earned, not imposed or given away without recognition of its cost.
The Global Bible project is examining how the extension of these principles impacts on the translation of the Bible among non-literate peoples in areas of expanding European colonisation. For the Inuit people of Greenland, this meant encounters mediated through missionaries from German lands, especially Lutherans and Moravians. Moravians were also active in British North America and in Newfoundland they secured more or less exclusive access to trade and proselytise the local people. As traders, the Moravians were the catalyst for dramatic changers in the economy of the Inuit peoples of the North.
Blubber was the medium of exchange, not just for Bibles but for the whole exchange economy.
As Brice Bennett (1990), the Moravians were traders and closely implicated in the commercialization of the arctic frontier. The Moravians created mission stations with an attached trade store, which allowed for the exchange of European items including weapons (though not initially), ironware, tobacco and other goods which were exchanged for seal oil, furs and Inuit artefacts, including carvings. For the Greenlanders, the principal tradable commodity was rendered fat from sea mammals, a product which had never formed part of the traditional economy.
For the Global Bible project, it is important to place the effort to translate the bible into the wider colonial context. While the new bible translations were undoubtedly received with enthusiasm, there were also hidden costs.
Research on this case study is ongoing and we are particularly interested in the way in which missionaries from German lands collaborated with British missionary and Bible societies beyond national and international boundaries.
References
Brice-Bennett, Carol. 1990. ‘Missionaries as Traders: Moravians and Labrador Inuit, 1771-1860’. In Merchant-Credit and Labour Strategies in Historical Perspective, ed. Rosemary E. Ommer (Fredericton, NB: Acadiensis Press).
Dudley, C.S. 1821. An Analysis of the System of the Bible Society (London: Watts). Google Books
Kohlmeister 1821. ‘Extract of a Letter from Brother Kohlmeister’. Periodical Accounts Relating to the Missions of the Church of the United Brethren 8: 103-4. Memorial University of Newfoundland DAI
Latrobe, Rev. C.J. 1821, ‘Labrador and Greenland’, Monthly Extracts from the Correspondence of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 17.52: 68-71
