The Social Sciences and Biblical Translation

The Bible is an ancient book written in a language other than English describing social and cultural situations incongruent with modern sensibilities. To help readers bridge these gaps this work examines the translation and interpretation of a set of biblical texts from the perspectives of cultural anthropology and the social sciences. The introduction deals with methodological issues enabling readers to recognize the differences in translation when words sentences and ideas are part of ancient social and cultural systems that shape meaning. The following essays demonstrate how Bible translations can be culturally sensitive take into account the challenge of social distance and avoid the dangers of ethnocentric and theological myopia. As a whole this work shows the importance of making use of the insights of cultural anthropology in an age of ever-increasing manipulation of the biblical text.The contributors are Alicia Batten Zeba A. Crook Richard E. DeMaris John H. Elliott Rob Kugler Carolyn Leeb Dietmar Neufeld John J. Pilch Richard L. Rohrbaugh and John Sandys-Wunsch.