Bible translation into sign languages constitutes an emerging and essential field within the broader mission of making the Scriptures accessible in the “language of the heart” to all ethnic groups, peoples, and nations. This article examines the most relevant and significant challenges involved in translating the Bible into Cuban Sign Language. Drawing on the experience of projects that have translated selected narratives from the New Testament and, more recently, the Gospel of Luke, published in March 2023, and the Book of Acts, currently in progress, the study identifies and analyzes obstacles of a linguistic, theological, cultural, methodological, and technological nature. Overcoming these diverse challenges is not only crucial for ensuring the fidelity and quality of the translation, but also constitutes an act of justice, inclusion, and recognition of the linguistic and cultural identity of the Cuban Deaf community.
Tshilidzi Knowles Khangala , Katlego Arnold Mashego
The intersection between religious freedom and educational entitlement is still a debated matter in South Africa, notably regarding Muslim pupils who desire to wear headscarves (hijabs) within state schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the legal framework governing these rights. Through a qualitative, desktop-based methodology, this study focused on constitutional provisions, statutory law, and judicial precedents. It argues that to prohibit any religious attire in schools constitutes unfair discrimination and violates both the right to freedom of religion and the right to basic education. Through a detailed analysis of relevant case law, including MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal v Pillay and Federation of Governing Bodies for South African Schools (FEDSAS) v MEC for Education, Gauteng, this paper undoubtedly shows that South African law mandates reasonable accommodation for religious practices in schools. The article duly concludes that educational institutions must fully respect cultural and religious diversity whilst upholding learners’ constitutional rights. By dealing with this gap, South Africa can fully respect the rights of everyone as enshrined in the constitution, in particular, the right to religion and education.
Vannesa El Shaday Ruth Advenita, Jessica Elfani Bermuli
Extrinsic motivation is an important factor in learning. However, many teachers have not been able to provide proper motivation by giving negative labeling to students. This happens because the teacher does not yet have the proper axiological foundation in viewing students as the image and likeness of God. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the axiological study of the teacher's role as a role model in providing motivation for students. The method used is a literature study. The result of the study showed that the Christian teacher needs to live up to the values in the Bible so that the teacher has the basic values of correct behaviour, namely the Word of God. Teachers must also imitate Christ because He is the perfect role model for humans.
O artigo aborda a relação entre a Igreja Católica e os meios de comunicação no Brasil, destacando sua evolução desde meados do século XX, revisitando a pesquisa bibliográfica sobre o conceito de “catolicismo midiático”. Coteja-se o conceito de midiatização da religião, a fim de superar uma visão focada apenas nas mídias, levando em conta processos midiático-religiosos mais complexos, como o fenômeno dos influenciadores digitais católicos. Afirma-se que, desde suas origens até hoje, o “catolicismo midiático” revela características distintivas que persistem, desaparecem ou mudam diante das transformações sociotecnológicas e teológico-eclesiais. Conclui-se que, de um catolicismo das massas e das multidões do fim do século XX, passa-se agora a um catolicismo de multi-indivíduos conectados, em meio a um processo contínuo de descatolização do Brasil e de desinstitucionalização da própria Igreja, a partir da publicização e pulverização de catolicismos diversos em redes digitais.
This article employs an internal logics approach, developed in a recent work by Sher Ali Tareen, to the study of the Barelwi school in South Africa. This approach ties metaphysics to practice. Specifically, the article addresses some works of the school’s founder, Ahmad Raza Khan, as translated by South African Islamic scholar Abdul Hadi Qadiri, in the light of this approach. It then extrapolates the insights of this approach to a recent article by Sepetla Molapo, which highlights the importance of appreciating the metaphysical role of ancestors in any academic approach to understanding traditional African worldviews and African self-concept. Taken together, the article suggests that the internal logics approach is helpful in bringing to the surface the crucial, but often obscured, metaphysical presuppositions concerning the nature of time-presuppositions that inform not only the worldview of the object being studied, but, equally, the often different ones that shape the perspective of the researcher.
Contribution: This article wishes to underscore the importance of metaphysical considerations in the study of religion, advocating an approach that highlights such considerations and examining some of its broader academic implications. While it specifically focuses on a theological contestation in Islam, it extends the implications of this contestation to the academic study of traditional African worldviews and to world religions more generally.
In a comparison of bibliographical approaches to Francysk Skaryna’s The Little Traveller’s Book (1522) and Erik Pontoppidan’s Natural History of Norway (1752) this article argues that attempts to write a book biography can benefit from extensive archival research as well as close physical examination of surviving copies, using new forensic technologies as well as adapting more traditional modes of investigation. Ultimately, however, the concept of ‘biography’ or ‘life cycle’ is questioned. The article examines the intellectual genesis, writing, translation, critical review, reception and collection of the Natural History as well as its extraordinary legacy – a legacy that is helpfully comparable to and distinctive from that of Skaryna’s work. Both writers moved in a world of circuits, of typographical and bibliographical innovation and comment, of travel and translation, of new and emergent accessibility to language and books – all, from their perspective, from the beneficence of God and to His glorification. Skaryna’s journey took him from Polatsk and Vilnius to Kraków and Padua, to his first Psalter and other biblical publishing in Prague and his The Little Traveller’s Book in Vilnius, to travels to Moscow, Poznan, Königsberg and back to Vilnius and Prague. As with Skaryna, Pontoppidan engaged in wide travel, also establishing far flung contacts and correspondence. Both faced constraints, and most notably the impact of war, disease, political and religious intervention and fires that destroyed cities and printing houses. Both writers were determined to write in the vernacular, Skaryna working to translate and create new type, all to make books of the Bible available in an accessible language. Skaryna contributed to the development of the Belarusian literary language just as Pontoppidan’s writing and interest in dialect contributed both to the standardization of Danish and the distinctive linguistic origins of Norwegian. Both composed prefaces to their editions, in which they emphasized that the purpose of their publishing activities was to help ordinary people, in Skaryna’s words to “become acquainted with wisdom and science.” The legacies of both diverged from literary references and directly derivative sightings of sea monsters in the case of Pontoppidan, to numerous statues and other material commemorations in the case of Skaryna who remains embroiled symbolically in different claims over national identities.
The concluding assessment of whether such study can contribute to a ‘book biography’ or ‘life cycle’ is guarded, suggesting alternative concepts that might be tested. This includes the idea of a ‘book biology’ whereby, in such study of a ‘life’, a book is conceived by its intellectual creator with very specific intentions and is then transmuted by other actors and agencies into different material, visual and linguistic forms. In the case of Skaryna, the creations amounted to numerous unstable texts, variously arranged, with uncertain survival rates and relatively poor evidence of use. In the case of Pontoppidan, three more stable editions, Danish, German and English, were all also materially different and each copy reproduced in separate operations of printing and collation. Each copy pursued thereafter its own life – no more reproduction and so no book genealogy – but hugely diverse and differently influential lives. In such ways the biosphere might be renamed the bibliosphere. Some book lives were terminated in relative infancy, some moved around the world and through many hands, some mutilated, others preserved in situ and symbolically represented at anniversaries or for political and cultural ends.
Bibliography. Library science. Information resources
The article explores Stanisław Grzepski’s workshop of biblical exegesis and his hermeneutics. By analyzing his analysis of the system of biblical measurements and his views on the concept of the year in the Jewish-biblical world – as derived and reconstructed on the basis of textual comparison of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin versions of the Scripture, along with thorough mathematical calculations – one can perceive Grzepski’s approach to the Bible. His hermeneutics, seen against the background of the presuppositions of medieval and Renaissance exegesis, allow the author of the article to draw certain conclusions concerning the threats that also modern exegesis should be cautious of.
The article examines W.Shakespeare’s use of biblical allusions in the tragedy “King Lear” and peculiarities
of their reproduction in the Ukrainian translation by P. Kulish. Such concepts as “allusion”, “bibleism”
and “bibleme” are considered herein, as well as the specifi c features of their reproduction. It was established
that the adequate reproduction of the biblical allusions of the source text was facilitated by translator’s thorough
knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, as far as P. Kulish translated into Ukrainian “Pentateuch”, “Job”,
Psalter, Gospel (co-authored with I. Puliui) and carried out the fi rst complete Ukrainian translation of the
Bible (in co-authorship with I. Puliui and I. Nechui-Levytskyi). It was found that in some places properly
reproduced biblemes were replaced during the editing process, which led to the loss of intertextuality. It
has been clarifi ed that the source text contains the following implicit biblemes: the story of Job, intertexts
of the Fall and fratricide, images of the Apocalypse and the suff erings of Jesus. It is established that the
use of biblical allusions creates in the text the biblical archetypes of Christ, Job, the Devil, Cain and Abel,
which is properly refl ected in the translation. It has been revealed that the translator’s ability to recognize
a biblical allusion in the source text depends on the appropriate cognitive base that the translator has, as
well as on the recipient’s linguistic and cultural competence which will enable proper interpretation. The
possibility to recognize the proposed equivalent in the translated text, if we are talking about an allusion to
a certain literary work, depends on the presence in the host culture of a translation of the text referred to by
the original author and the reader’s level of familiarity with the denotations of the allusion. The conclusion
has been drawn that when trying to fi nd an appropriate equivalent, it is important for the translator not to
deprive the reader of the pleasure of decoding hidden meanings, that is, not to resort to overinterpretation
in the explanation of the allusion.
Die Analyse althebräischer Sätze in der Poesie bietet nach vielen Jahr(zehnt)en der Forschung – von den Verbformationen und deren Funktionen bis zur differenzierten Wahrnehmung der Informationsstruktur biblischer Texte – immer noch jede Menge offener Fragen.
Lo sagrado ha sido considerado una categoría esencial para estudiar y comprender las religiones. Este punto de partida ha hecho pensar que incluso las religiones que carecen de una noción de divinidad conservan su dimensión sagrada. El presente artículo intenta volver sobre lo sagrado, pero con el fin de demostrar algunas dificultades de esta categoría cuando se intenta penetrar en el sentido ético-espiritual de las religiones. De este modo, con el fin de ofrecer una mejor comprensión de las religiones se opera un desmontaje de lo sagrado por el que se reactiva la categoría de la santidad. Esta categoría asegura no solo otro acercamiento a las religiones, sino que permite entender por qué aparece con insistencia la espiritualidad en el escenario actual. Así, pues, nos proponemos profundizar en las ramificaciones y manifestaciones culturales de lo sagrado así como emitir una crítica de la realidad sagrada para elaborar filosóficamente el concepto de santidad. Dicho concepto explica mejor lo que son las religiones.
La producción intelectual del Dr. Gonzalo Soto Posada, docente e investigador distinguido en el contexto colombiano e internacional, ha sido un referente importante en el abordaje filosófico y teológico de temáticas relacionadas con la medievalidad. En la revista Cuestiones Teológicas de la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana se evidencia de forma particular un corpus considerable que representa su contribución reflexiva sobre esta cuestión; por eso, a través de una selección de algunos de sus artículos publicados en este medio, se pudo constatar una semblanza intelectual en la que este autor parte de un discurso filosófico para establecer su postura en distintos aspectos de la teología. A través de este artículo se evidencia cómo el profesor Soto, sin dejar de reconocer su formación en filosofía y estableciendo un diálogo permanente entre saberes, se aventura al quehacer teológico haciendo un análisis pertinente de algunas concepciones que en la Edad Media fueron objeto de discusión.
In the nineteenth century, miniature books and curiosities proliferated; in particular, thumb Bibles, miniature synopses of the Bible, experienced widespread popularity. Intended to provide children with a simplified introduction to Biblical narratives and religious instruction, thumb Bibles illustrate the mediation of religious instruction through material culture. The presence and influence of religious groups in the publishing industry, paired with publishers’ new-found capacity to cater to middle-class demand for novelty children’s books, created an environment in which thumb Bibles’ popularity soared. This article begins by tracing the thumb-Bible genre from its development in the seventeenth century to its immense popularity in the Victorian era. It considers how their physical forms, connected to ‘toy books’, integrate play and religious instruction. This essay considers one example of this popular genre, The Little Picture Testament, published by Charles Tilt in 1839. A detailed description of the book’s bibliographic elements will familiarize the reader with the work, and an outline of its production and reception will then situate its literary production within its material, cultural, and religious contexts. Ultimately, this essay considers how The Little Picture Testament confronts and condenses the intricacies of the Bible, all while captivating its child audience.
This article dealt with the process of building up the local congregation and the manner in which missional objectives are achieved. The article was undertaken against the background of the disturbing decline in membership numbers, particularly in the two traditional Reformational churches in South Africa, namely the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) and the Netherdutch Reformed Church of Africa. This decline is in line with similar tendencies in mainstream churches the world over. The key aspects of the theory of building up the local church was discussed and mission in the current South African context dealt with, particularly in view of the fact that an entirely new mission field has opened itself up with the influx into the country of so many people from neighbouring countries who have come to live in our midst. Missional objectives for the local church, as well as aspects that can be subjected to empirical testing are determined all along. The hypothesis wanted to verify whether local churches that have undergone a structured process of building up the local church are more successful missionally than those that have not undergone a structured process.
Christians in the first five centuries of the church lived in an environment that placed a high value on literary and rhetorical expression. Within this context, cultured critics of Christianity often disparaged the literary style of the Christian Bible in its Greek and Latin forms. The most common response in the first Christian centuries was to concede Scripture’s simple style but to assert the superiority of its divine content. But eventually Christians began to suggest paradigms for seeing artistic crafting in the biblical text. One stream of thought, exemplified by Jerome, looked to the original language of the Old Testament to discover the literary quality of Scripture. Another stream of thought, developed by Augustine, explored the literary quality of Scripture by reflecting on the relationship between human conventions and divine inspiration.
Gary N. Knoppers, Gary N. Knoppers, Deirdre N. Fulton
et al.
This conversation with Jacob L. Wright, Rebuilding
Identity: The Nehemiah Memoir and its Earliest Readers (BZAW, 348; Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2004) began in a special session of the Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah
section that was held at the national meeting of the Society of Biblical
Literature in November 2006 (Washington, DC). It includes an introduction by the
editor and contributions by Deirdre N. Fulton, David M. Carr, Ralph W. Klein and
a response by Jacob L. Wright.