Translation as Incarnation: The Bible in the Twenty-First-Century Global South

The publication and attention given to postcolonial work has flooded the field of academia, yet not much attention has been paid to the precolonial, premissional, and colonial eras, and receptions of the Western Missionary Bible and its impact on the colonization of Global South nations; schools in this area had to wrestle with the study of the Bible from kindergarten to college. Through vigorous readings of the New Testament and other related subjects, indigenous Christian converts demanded that the Bible needed to be translated into various vernacular and ethnic languages. The hunger for engaging the Bible in the linguistic worldview of people led to the process of translation, printing, and distribution into rural and urban centers. Hence the journey of the Bible and its reception in the Global South is what is referred to as "Vernacular Translation as Incarnation" (taken from John 1:14). Therefore, this book is an invitation to postcolonial readers of the Bible, as well as an urgent invitation to both Europe and North America to consider having the Bible in schools so that young minds can be engaged by it. Without translations of the Bible into the vernacular, Christianity would not be growing as it is in the Global South nations, namely Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Hence, vernacular translations of the Bible are indeed incarnational.