Loyalty and Liberation

Extracted text from Loyalty_and_Liberation_MAP.pdf:

Nathan Esala

BT 2015

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Title: Loyalty and Liberation: Skopos Theorys Ethic in Dialogue with Contextual Bible Studys Commitments

Abstract: This paper explores how Christiane Nords ethic of translator loyalty could be invigorated in Bible translation by engaging the social commitments of Contextual Bible Study, a practice of Bible reading and social action developed by the Ujamaa center in South Africa over the past 20 years. I will describe Nords concept of loyalty in translation studies. Then I will mention some of the complexity I have encountered practicing translator loyalty in Bible translation in Ghana. I will then consider how loyalty might look if it included the social and interpretive commitments of Contextual Bible Study. I will compare the relationship of the translator to the host community and to critical scholarly communities with what Gerald West calls the socially engaged scholars relationship to those communities. My goal is to frame translator loyalty to the host community and to critical scholarship in ways that calibrate asymmetries of power in service to the host communitys desire for and preferred expression of liberation. Conference subthemes: Contemporary Context of Bible Translation; Theory and Practice

Introduction

This paper will focuses on the human relationships in translation using Christiane Nords ethic of translator loyalty in the skopos theory framework. I will briefly reflect on my journey with loyalty in skopos theory, and then I will discuss my recent experience with Contextual Bible Study (CBS), as it has been developed in South Africa, presenting it as a way to calibrate the translators relationships to real human bodies in the host and source contexts, with a primary emphasis on the specific human bodies in the host context that a Bible Translation attempts to change and influence with its new offer of information, but without neglecting the bodies of scholarship which investigate the biblical source text.

Translator loyalty in Nords model Nord has called loyalty a bilateral responsibility to the host audience and the author (1997, 125). Nord has indicated the existence of a third pole, which are the initiators of a translation, and she also includes a possible fourth pole, the translator herself (126).1 Loyalty was one of the reasons I was initially drawn to skopos theory because of its aforementioned emphasis on human relationships and because I perceived in that ethic a link to Lamin Sannehs notion of reciprocity which recognized that the host audience is not a passive recipient but could reciprocally respond to elements in the senders message that the missionary couriers of the message did not perceive (Sanneh 2009, 209-211). My own application of skopos theory to Bible Translation among the Bikm peoples in Ghana has focused on ways to observe and value local African agency in Bible Translation processes (Esala 2012, 31).2 I have struggled to recognize and foster reciprocity in the host audience in discourses about translation and in translation practice (Esala 2013, 318-319; 2014, 323).3 The relationship between these poles would be nicely explicated by what Jonathan Draper calls a tri-polar hermeneutical approach to biblical interpretation (Draper 2002) and what Gerald West calls ideo-theological lines of connection between source text, and contemporary context, and the interpreter (West 2009a). 2 This concern was a gift to me from my interaction with Dr. Hank Rowald and my interactions with missionaries Dale and Alvina Federwitz. Rowald pointed me to the work of Lamin Sanneh, which opened up space for me to imagine myself participating in Bible translation. The Federwitzes modeled fostering community organization and agency in Bible translation and missiology. 3 Pat Andrews and Sebastian Floors paper in this conference asked How do end-users voices get heard? 1

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Contextual Bible Study Using CBS last spring in Northern Ghana was one of those aha moments where I began to experience solutions to the problems I have been confronting in BT using the skopos theory model (Esala 2015).

As an introduction to CBS, these are the CBS commitments (or core values). I will return to these in my last section on translation agencies relationship to the translator. 1. A commitment to read4 the Bible from the perspective of the poor and working class as a community starting point, with the goal of creating redemptive communities. 2. A commitment to read the Bible collaboratively (poor and working class, organic intellectuals, socially engaged scholars and theologians). 3. A commitment to read the Bible critically using the resources of poor and marginalized communities and that of critical scholarship. 4. A commitment to read the Bible for individual and social transformation (change). 5. A commitment to the analysis of layers of context in self, society and biblical texts (economic, political, cultural, and religious layers of context). 6. A commitment to read the Bible foregrounding issues of contestation of the God of life against the idols of death.

How do these social commitments and the interpretive strategies associated with CBS help calibrate translator loyalty in relationship to specific groups of human beings? How might they sharpen what is technically possible within the skopos theory framework to make it socially, relationally, and physically beneficial for the host audience? While many things are possible, not everything is beneficial!

The priority of the host community

Skopos theory recognizes the priority of the audience and host context in terms of how a translation functions.5 The concept of loyalty focuses the translator on her relationship to the audience in the processes of translation itself. A translator needs to be ethical and loyal to real people in the audience. Critics of skopos theory point out the difficulty of finding out what actual people in the host audience desire (Nord 2012, 31). I have expressed hope regarding the possibility of genuine dialogue (Esala 2013, 318; 2014, 323-324) and yet the implementation has not been satisfying. People tell the translation organization what they think the organization wants or expects to hear. Even when translators are part of the host audience, in their translation role or vocation, they are often perceived as acting on behalf of the initiator. This is magnified by layers of complex power relations.

Translational dialogue as public transcript Through my work with the theoretical underpinnings of CBS, I have come across the work of James C. Scott. Scotts work is significant for a discussion on agency in interpretation and translation because Scott recognizes that in situations where one group is dominant and the other is subordinate, the typical Along with the using the word read in an active sense, we could also consider the ways we interpret, translate, sign, and hear the Bible. 5 Lawrence Venuti makes the point even clearer in the title of his book Translation Changes Everything (2012). Similarly but with a more theological twist and a tip of the cap towards liberation theology, Sanneh observes in his study of Bible translation in the colonial era that African audiences had power over the originating influences of missionaries. He calls this the preferential option for the native as Gentile (2009, 193). 4

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interaction between the two groups is slanted in favor of the dominant group. Scott calls this the public transcript (1990, 2).6 In other words when dialoguing about audience expectations for a translation, Scotts research on the public transcript suggests translators should expect that local communities will share what they think translators and the translation agencies they represent want to hear.

Moving beyond the public transcript through CBS How does one move beyond the public transcript which always favors the dominant in the room, whether that be around a table of translation initiators, or translators in their own communities of embedded domination?

There are at least three ways this is addressed in CBS. First CBS looks at the audience in a layered way. Each community is composed of many sub-communities who are to varying degrees marginalized in the public space of contemporary decision making, political representation and policy making. Second, as Bible study facilitators drill down to deeper specificity in any given community, they do so with the intention of prioritizing suffering, victimization and marginalization throughout the layered communitys experiences. Viewing the audience as a corporate body, and prioritizing their experience of pain in the interpretive process is akin to the apostle Pauls theology of the body and weakness in the Corinthian letters.7 Third, following Scotts concept of the hidden transcript (1990, 5)8, CBS believes that subordinate audiences typically secure safe spaces where they can take off their masks and express thoughts which they are not free to practice in public spaces because it is generally not safe to do so. CBS thus seeks to secure the Bible study environment as a safe space for subordinates to express some aspects of their typically hidden transcript (West 2009b).9 Safe space thus can foster agency.

Securing safe space through CBS to encourage genuine dialogue A major part of making the Bible study space safe is crystallized in the simple statement that in this study, we are intentionally reading the Bible on the side of the subordinate group, thus validating the priority of the hidden transcript over the public transcript.

The public transcript is a shorthand way of describing the open interaction between subordinates and those who dominateThe public transcript where it is not positively misleading, is unlikely to tell the whole story about power relations. It is frequently in the interest of both parties to tacitly conspire in misrepresentation" (1990, 2). "The theatrical imperatives that normally prevail in situations of domination produce a public transcript in close conformity with how the dominant group would wish to have things appear (4). 7 1 Corinthians 12:21-26 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, I dont need you! And the head cannot say to the feet, I dont need you! 22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (NIV) Other texts include 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 and 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. 8 "I shall use the term hidden transcript to characterize discourse that takes place "offstage" beyond direct observation by powerholders. The hidden transcript is thus derivative in the sense that it consists of those offstage speeches, gestures and practices that confirm, contradict, or inflect what appears in the public transcript (1990, 45). 9 West discusses the reality that some communities are atomized and monitored so they find it difficult to congregate and practice their hidden transcripts. West still believes, in such situations, the hidden transcript of dignity remains embodied (2009b, 31). See also Scott 1990, 134. 6

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In a recent study around Job 2-3 with people living with disabilities, Bikm translator and CBS facilitator James Adongo unequivocally signaled that this Bible study was intended to be on the side of the participants by opening the study time with a traditional folktale.10 Folktales are one example of infrapolitical dialogue in Scotts taxonomy of dialogue between dominant and subordinate groups. Adongo told a story about a farmer who hated his horse because he could not do any useful work. 11 One day when the horse was walking along, he fell into a well. Seeing the horse, the farmer called his family and friends around. He said, lets bury this horse quickly. So they started burying the horse, but when the dirt hit the horse, the horse shook himself and the dirt fell to his hooves. When the dirt accumulated a bit, the horse simply raised his hooves and eventually, he was able to climb out of the well. At the end of the story Adongo openly spoke themes of the hidden transcript when he urged participants that in this study we want you to shake yourselves so that people do not bury you! 12

There are many other small group facilitation skills that take place throughout the implementation of a study which should signal to participants that this space and time are intended to be secure safe spaces (West 2004, 2009b). 13 Each of their voices, social locations, and experiences are important and valued. If the space is safe subordinate / subaltern populations may take the opportunity to practice or share portions of their hidden transcripts with those present.

Addressing layered audiences contexts by privileging experiences of pain Studying the Bible with people living with disabilities helped to turn the Bible study facilitators (who are also Bible translators preparing to move into Old Testament translation) collective hearts from ignoring marginalized voices in their midst, towards actively interpreting the Bible with them pursuing interpretations and actions that bestow life rather than death (Hinkleammert 1986).14 Not only is it life giving for those living with disabilities but also for the organic scholars situated as leaders in the mainstream Bikm community (West 2005). As evidence for this claim, several months after the Job study, facilitators/translators gave unsolicited feedback to a colleague of mine. It was reported to me that a translator said very seriously, nearly weeping, I did not know our people felt that way, that they would consider taking their own lives. In the CBS process, his heart was being turned to the least of these our brothers and sisters. The same is true for me. As a North American Bible translator, I remained practically unconcerned about how the Bible was being received by those society considers to be the least of these among the Komba people because I was having a hard enough time engaging the more dominant voices. But by privileging marginalization, that unexpectedly helped forge a way into a more reciprocal dialogue for translators and myself in relation to the whole host audience. The experience helped us position ourselves on the side of all of the host audiences pain as well as its pride. In Scotts taxonomy, folktales are an example of infrapolitical language, along with jokes, rumors, gossip, songs, euphemisms, codes, and rituals. Infrapolitical speech is a third type of speech which mediates between the public and hidden transcripts. It is a coded speech that takes place in the public view, but it is intentionally employed to have a double meaning, one of which is critical of the dominant group, if you know the code, and the other meaning, for those who do not know the code, is innocuous (1990, 19). 11 In a society dominated by monopoly capitalism, the horse could be an example of surplus populations that are not necessary for the market. 12 Adongos story is also an example of an organic scholar encouraging agency, playing a role in the conscientizing process (West 2014, 4). 13 West 2004 identifies a range of facilitation skills, some of which are more directive, such as Bob Ekblads facilitation of Bible study with immigrants in jails, detention centers and migrant camps. 14 After the fall of the Soviet Union and socialist movements in South America, liberation theologians reframed their arguments theologically as taking sides with the God of life over against the idols of death. 10

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Through CBS, facilitators engage with different marginalized groups in their midst around issues that bring life and death to their bodies, individually and collectively. Highlighting the gravity of the issues for these specific bodies and privileging their experience in the context of God, family, and community seems to open up the dialogue in life-giving ways. Highlighting the experience of actual bodies, grants them epistemological privilege for the broader community. This is a significant epistemological shift from business as usual in interpretation, Scripture Engagement, and translation.

The process and hermeneutical movements of CBS

Within CBS, the bridge between the host context and the source text takes place in the hermeneutical movements of CBS. After introducing you to these movements, I will then go on to consider how CBS could calibrate the translators relationship to source text scholarship, and subsequently how it could influence the translator / translation agency relationship.

CBS begins with facilitators. In our case in Ghana, facilitators were local translators and myself as an expatriate American exegetical advisor living in the community. In CBS terms, the translators are organic scholars who engage critical scholarship from inside and on behalf of their communities of origin. An exegetical advisor or a consultant could be a socially engaged biblical scholar, that is, a scholar who is from outside the host community who intentionally engages scholarship on behalf of marginalized communities. In order for these categories to be interchangeable, translators and exegetes need to be converted to the social commitments of CBS. Facilitators identify a social problem in their community. The Bikm translation team identified the following issues: local water shortages, teenage pregnancy and abortion in local towns with secondary schools, illiteracy in Bible reading, and people with disabilities in the town of Gbintiri where the translation office was located. CBS prefers to work with groups who are organized prior to CBS involvement. We discovered that one of the translators was also the secretary for the people with disabilities group in Gbintiri.

Next CBS involves critically looking at the local experience using local and scholarly resources, focusing on the systemic dimensions of the groups experience. Then it involves facilitators and group participants collaboratively selecting a particular Bible text which promises to shed light on their experience. At this point, facilitators engage critical biblical scholarship looking for lines of connection in the text and context of the Bible (Gottwald 1985, 225). Facilitators create a set of questions that help participants read their situation and the Bible in pursuit of transformation. CBS questions seek to move participants through a process of liberation hermeneutics, made popular is Latin America, called See-Judge-Act. Within CBS the See-Judge-Act movement is supported by two sub-movements. The first sub-movement begins with community consciousness, which is the participants current reality, moving into critical consciousness, where participants slow down and carefully read the Bible using the resources of critical biblical scholarship. Then participants move back into community consciousness, where they appropriate what they learned and decide upon appropriate action. At the critical consciousness stage, facilitators lead participants through a set of questions which move through a range of approaches within biblical studies: thematic or semiotic, literary, and socio-historic.

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Here are the questions for the Job 2-3 study as created in Ghana. Translator Samson Bilafanim suggested engaging Job 2:7-9 with people with disabilities. He intuitively felt that reading this together would encourage the participants. All of the questions for Job 3 were drawn from a study done with people living with HIV in South Africa while the questions around Job 2 were created by the team of facilitators / translators including myself. Read Job 2:7-9 1. 2. How does Jobs wife statement sound to persons living with disabilities? If you were to respond to Jobs wife what would you say?

Read Job 2:10 note how Jobs statement is different or similar to what you said. Read Job 2:11-2:13 Read Job chapter 3 fully.

3. What is Job trying to say in this text?

Discuss as a whole group. Note key points.

4. What images or metaphors does Job use in his lament? 5. What does Job 3 say to people living with disabilities? 6. Which of Jobs metaphors are particularly relevant? 7. What would be your own version of Job 3?

Break into small groups.

Read Job 42:7-8

8. What is Gods view of how Job has spoken in chapter 3? 9. How can you share your version of Job 3 with your local church or community?

So CBS begins and ends with the community, and in between it helps participants carefully and slowly interpret the detail of a biblical text. We will now look at the translators loyal relationship to the author beginning in skopos theory and then consider how that relationship is calibrated in the CBS model.

The translators relationship to source text scholarship

At a time when fidelity to the source text was the concern in translation, skopos theory sought to dethrone the absolute rule of the source text in translation evaluation (Nord 1997, 25). If the host context is most important, what then is the relationship to the source text?

Nords notion of translator loyalty specifies human relationships over textual relationships. In the absence of a live human author, as in the case of ancient texts like the Bible, I have suggested that the translation brief should specify the translations source text authorities or preferred interpretive methodologies based

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on what was best for that context, such as the religio-cultural interpretation of the Bible used by some African scholars (Esala 2012, 29).15

CBS and source text CBS changes the dialogue to consider which schools of scholarship are life-giving for this or that group. Through the CBS questions and subsequent dialogue, CBS facilitators are expected to offer resources from a range of biblical disciplines (semiotic, literary, and socio-historical) that have the potential to bring life. However, the facilitator is often not aware what is and what is not useful for a particular context and thus makes offers of information16 which may or may not be picked up by the community. Interestingly, the same text which can be read one way with integrity to liberate one group, may need to be read another way with integrity to liberate a different group within the same broader community (West 2010).17 At other times, the same CBS study may be useful for groups experiencing different forms of marginalization.18 While different groups interpret the same text in their own safe spaces in different ways, each with integrity, CBS facilitators are committed to contributing to scholarly dialogue about how those texts can be used to foster more broadly redemptive communities. Translation is one contribution scholarship can make to fostering redemptive communities around sacred texts. A set of CBS experiences could provide a place for translators to discover and test interpretations that bring life to their communities experience of pain, and also then to find ways to leave translated signs that point to those interpretations as long as it is done with integrity in scholarly circles.

Furthermore, through CBS experiences translators are likely to become more aware of the ways in which some texts have been used to bring death to some communities and groups. One way CBS practitioners in South Africa express this realization is by saying that the Bible speaks with different voices. Most interpretive communities prioritize some texts and reading strategies as keys to interpret others, but how this is done differs.19 CBS challenges any community to use their interpretive strategies and doctrinal formulations in ways that structurally challenge the reality of marginalization including the way the church cooperates in or ignores marginalization, and instead to choose strategies that bring life and hospitality to those victimized by pressures in society.20

Justin Ukpong suggests that the local communitys frame of reference should be the starting point in hermeneutical interpretation (Ukpong 2002, 15-16). 16 The phrase offer of information is also used in skopos theory (Reiss and Vermeer 2013, 32). 17 West illustrates this in the evolution of the Tamar study, reading with women who have experienced rape, and then reading the same text with men, who are seeking to embrace masculinities and systems that do not perpetuate systems of domination. Reading with men attempting to construct alternatives to structures that promote rape, the structural analysis of the text changed, and their view of the word love similarly changed (2010). 18 My experience with Job 2-3 began with a group of people living with disabilities in Ghana. I have since gone on to do the same study with elderly people in the United States and a family living with Alzheimers disease. Each of these experiences is different, but all offer resources to a translator seeking to translate a text for the broader community in the interest of fostering a more redemptive community dynamic. 19 My own religious community, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod which holds a high view of Scripture recognizes that God speaks through the Bible with different voices, the voice that puts the sinner to death, and the voice which raises one up to life. 20 Leopoldo Snchez, a theologian in the Missouri Synod mentioned above, encourages the church to take their neighbors experience of marginalization seriously, standing in solidarity with their experiences and feeling the discontent of their reality. He advocates for the church to read Scripture through the lens of marginalization and 15

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Translator relation to the initiator of the translation and to ethics

Beyond the bilateral relationship of the translator to the host audience, and source scholarship, Nord mentions a third entity in the translators realm of loyal relationships, the initiator or the client which sponsors a translation. For Bible translation, these could be translation agencies, churches, or local organizations. A client wants a translator to make a translation for some vested interest. Recognizing this real world influence on translation helps agencies and translators to be more explicit about what they are trying to do. What modes of production are they participating in and why? Skopos theory has given Bible translation the concept of the translation brief which publicly states what an initiator (or set of initiators) is intending to do and how the initator(s) will attempt to act in this translation. The brief is a place to make explicit the ideo-theological interests that initiators and translators are presupposing and using as they translate this text seeking to effect change in this particular audience. CBS and translator initiator relationships CBS challenges translation initiators to even more explicitly situate themselves in the translation brief by standing in solidarity with a multiplicity of marginalizations in the host community in any given translational action. The six commitments of CBS are a simple place to start. It would be fruitful for translation agencies at international, national, and local levels to consider adopting or adapting the commitments of CBS. The commitments would certainly affect the translation brief and thereby would influence how the text was intended to function in the host context.

Skopos theory, CBS, and translator ethics The fourth participant in translational relationships is the translator herself. While a translator can always claim, This is my job, I am only doing what I am hired to do by a client, Nord encourages translators to evaluate the ethics of any translational action before translating. CBS offers translators an experience where they get to stand in solidarity with marginalized in their own communities. This promises to turn translators hearts to the least of these in their midst.

The CBS experience gives initiators and translators the chance to experience what it is like to stand cruciformly with the marginalized, far away, and most importantly in their own backyards (Snchez 2015, 122). I started CBS with my friends in Ghana around the issue of disabilities, and have since moved on to try the same CBS study on Job 2-3 with an elderly community in Columbus, Ohio and a family living with Alzheimers.

An application to translation

So what does this do for translation? CBS is interested in producing community appropriations of texts based on community Bible study experiences.21 CBS makes use of any translation that a person or community prefers as it studies the detail of a biblical text.

So is this Scripture Engagement activity of any use for translation proper as I have been suggesting? Believing that translation does in fact, change everything, as Venuti claims, and that translation makes a hospitality. Sanchez is forging a path to interpret Scripture in ways that bring life to marginalized neighbors far away and in our backyards (Snchez 2015). 21 The appropriations of Job 3 by people living with disabilities in Ghana, elderly residences in the United States, and with a family living with Alzheimers disease in the United States are different voices than Jobs voice. (See Appendix 2).

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new offer of information, as skopos theory claims, and that there are contexts where new translation is helpful and necessary, it must make a difference how a translator stands with a community.

In order to test that hypothesis, based on my CBS experience with Job 3 with three different groups struggling with social and theological marginalization because of realities in their bodies and minds, I offer a new experimental written translation of Job 3, written from a North American context, but in a way that I hope is useful for Ghana and is especially useful to communities perpetuating and struggling with stigma because of physical and mental conditions. The translation seeks to evoke lines of connection with the past, highlighting structural sin, paths to liberation, and warning where the text might be used to marginalize certain groups of people in the broader audience. I use a literary style of translation to encourage engaging the detail of the text. I indicate in footnotes where I think there are lines of connection between my new offer of information with liberating or dominating forces perceived in the source text. I further indicate whether the line of connection came from critical scholarship or from marginalized communities (See Appendix 3).

References

Draper, Jonathan A. 2002. Reading the Bible as Conversation: A Theory and Methodology for Contextual Interpretation of the Bible in Africa. Grace and Truth 19 (2): 1224. Esala, Nathan. 2012. Skopostheorie: A Functional Approach for the Future of Bible Translation in Africa? Journal of African Christian Thought 15 (2): 2632. (= 2013. Implementing Skopostheorie in Bible Translation. The Bible Translator 64 (3): 300323.) ___________. 2014. Measuring the Adequacy of the Host Text Using Skopostheorie in Bible Tranlsation: The Ethics of Operational Transparency. The Bible Translator 65 (3): 30836.

___________. Forthcoming. Ideology and Bible Translation: Can Biblical Performance Criticism Help? The Bible Translator.

___________. 2015. Towards contextualizing Contextual Bible Study among the Bikm

peoples in Ghana. Paper Presented at the International Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 24.

Gottwald, Norman K. 1985. The Hebrew Bible--a Socio-Literary Introduction. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

Hinkelammert, Franz J. 1986. The Ideological Weapons of Death: A Theological Critique of Capitalism. Maryknoll, N.Y: Orbis Books. Nord, Christiane. 1997. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained . Manchester: St. Jerome.

Reiss, Katharina, and Hans J. Vermeer. 2013. Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained. Translated by Christiane Nord; English reviewed by Marina Dudenhfer. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing.

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Snchez M., Leopoldo A. 2015. Can Anything Good Come Out of _____? Come and See! Faithful Witness in Marginality and Hospitality. Concordia Journal 41 (2): 11123.

Sanneh, Lamin O. 2009. Translating the Message: The Missionary Impact on Culture. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. Scott, James C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Ukpong, Justin S. 2002. Reading the Bible in a Global Village: Issues and Challenges from African Readings. In Reading the Bible in the Global Village: Cape Town, 940. Global Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship 3. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature. Venuti, Lawrence. 2012. Translation Changes Everything: Theory and Practice . Independence, KY, USA: Routledge. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID=10640475.

West, Gerald O. 2004. Artful Facilitation and Creating a Safe Interpretive Site: An Analysis of Aspects of a Bible Study. Pages 211237 in Through the Eyes of Another: Intercultural Reading of the Bible . Edited by Hans de Wit et. al. Elkhart, IN: Institute of Mennonite Studies. ___________. 2005. Articulating, Owning, and Mainstreaming Local Theologies: The Contribution of Contextual Bible Study. Journal of Theology for Southern Africa 122 (July): 2335. ___________. 2009a. Interpreting the Exile in African Biblical Scholarship: An Ideo-Theological Dilemma in Post-Colonial South Africa. In Exile and Suffering, edited by Bob Becking and Dirk Human. Vol. 50. Oudtestamentische Studin. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

___________. 2009b. The Not so Silent Citizen: Hearing Embodied Theology in The Context of HIV and AIDS in South Africa. In Heterotopic Citizen: New Research on Religious Work for the Disadvantaged, edited by Trygve Wyller, 2342. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. ___________.2014. Locating Contextual Bible Study within Biblical Liberation Hermeneutics and Intercultural Biblical Hermeneutics. HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 70 (1). doi:10.4102/hts.v70i1.2641.

Appendix 1

James Wajaks story told at the opening of a Contextual Bible Study on Job 2-3 done with persons living with disabilities in the town of Gbintiri, Ghana (translation done by Nathan Esala). There was a farmer, and the farmer had a horse. Now the farmer did not like the horse. The farmer thought that the horse did not work. Do you hear?

And the farmer had a well (hole) in his farm. One day, the horse fell into the dry well. When the horse fell into the dry well, the famer knew that since his people were not together with him--because he already did not like the horses matter, because he could not do anything. He could not work, he could not carry loads, you know at that time if horses carried loads, they would die, and so the horse could not do anything. If he died,

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(pause) If he died, fine-- Since the horse fell into the well, the farm owner said, Hey, All of you gather my people! My people, everybody gather so we can bury the horse completely! We will not be able to get him back out. So we are going to bury him. As the horse fell into the well, the horse could not get out, and the farm owner could not get him out so he said they should bury the horse. Now, they had gathered their large hoes, their small hoes, and their shovels. And he said, they should collect dirt and just bury the horse. Fill in the hole! And they dug dirt and flung it onto the horse in the hole. Now the horse was standing there, when they were flinging dirt on him. And the horse shook shook himself. The dirt fell on the ground. And he shook his leg, and lifted up his leg one at a time and stood on the dirt. What was he doing? (Answer) He was climbing up. (Pause) They were burying the horse and the horse was getting higher. You know the horse. Go faster. The horse is climbing. They went faster, but the horse simply shook himself and stood on the dirt. So the horse was able to climb out. (Clapping)

Appendix 2

So I want to tell you, people think that you who are sitting here, you cannot do anything. I want to tell you that if they want to bury you, by Gods power, you will climb out! (Clapping). If you are in a place where people think you are in a hole and that you cannot get out, you can get out. If you think cannot do anything, you will climb. Your climbing is in your own power. The horse, the one they were burying, could he get out? (Everyone responds no). But when they started to bury him, he shook himself, and the dirt fell down, and when it reached a certain level he lifted up his feet, and he climbed out. So you all, lift up your feet. Yes! (Clapping) Therefore today, (clapping) so try your best, [ifto be doing, do not forget that the horse shook, so that you dont just be quiet] 22 so that they bury you. God bless you.

A family living with Alzheimers lament inspired by Job 3 At Grandmas death, she smiled and died. A good way to go.

A happiness and relief at death.

Death is rest,

I wont do anything about it, but it sucks. peace and hidden treasure.

The pain is in the DNA and goes back far.

Inside the brackets the translation is my best guess because there was lots of clapping and the speech was very quick. 22

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He was just something else. Why in one family?

Ill look him up in heaven.

My brother was my very best friend.

I remember Grandpas scream at Adams death. I dont know.

I am okay with what is going on.

I get upset but not very often.

Waiting for him to take me home.

I am just here, not doing much. Id rather be home.

It sucks, but it is what it is.

I dont know what God thinks of me when I get upset.

Appendix 3

A translation of Job 3

Skopos Create a literary translation useful to communities experiencing and perpetuating social and theological stigma because of their bodily and social conditions. Who is this for? For Bible translation practitioners, so they might see whether CBS experiences can actually influence translation for a larger group inclusive of multiple marginalizations in society. 1

After this Job opened his mouth and curseda his day.b Job answered and said: 3 Delete the day on which I was born, and also the night which announced a man has been conceived!c That day! Let it be darknessd Do not call fore it, God above! Do not shine light upon it 5 Darkness and deep shadow- redeem it for your own Let a cloud settle on it Let the day darkening evil eclipsef terrify it! 4 6

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That night! Let gloom seize it--

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Names have been changed.

Nathan Esala

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Not to be counted among the days of the year In the number of months, not to enter 7 Behold! That night let it be barreng Let no ululation of joyh penetratei it 8 Let those who curse a day--curse it! The ones who are ready to rouse Leviathan 9 Let its morning stars be dark Let it wait for the daylight and receive none Do not let it look on the eyelids of dawn 10 because it did not shut the doors of my wombj nor did it hide trouble from my eyes Why did I not come out of the womb stillborn? Or from the belly, come out and expire? 12 Why were there knees to receive me, and breasts for me to suck? 13 For now I would be lying down at peace asleep then I would be at restk 15 or with princes and their gold who filled their houses with silver 16 or why was I not covered up like a miscarriage like babies who have never seen lightl 11

There the wicked cease from insurrection and there the exhausted are at rest 18 Together, prisoners can relax they do not hear the voice of the oppressor 19 Small and great are the same there the slave is free from his master 17

Why does he give light --to a sufferer and life --to the bitter in soul 21 --to those who long for death, and it does not come they dig for it more than hidden treasurem 22 Merrily, they rejoice even to jubilation because they find the grave 23 --to a mann whose path is hidden whom God has hedged in? 20

For my sighing comes as my daily bread and my groanings pour out like water 25 Because I feared a fear and it happened to me and what I dreaded came to me 26 I am not at peace not still not at rest and trouble has come a 3.1 The narrator tells us Job cursed his day. Job calls others to curse in v. 8 (Masenya, Madipoane "Her Lament" 2012). b 3.1 In southern Ghana, people could take this as referring to the day of the week on which one was born (African Biblical Hermeneutics). 24

Nathan Esala c

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3.3 Job challenges a theology which seeks to locate the cause of all misfortune in the moral failures of an individual or a relative, or blame misfortune on an individual's lack of faith. d 3.4 Genesis 1:1 in reverse (Organic intellectual in the Alzheimer's study). e 3.4 Require it, seek it f 3.5 An alternate translation would be "That which darkens the day." It refers to mystical evil powers, such as dragons, which capture the sun and moon (African Biblical Hermeneutics and Ancient Near Eastern socio-historical studies). g 3.7 Job now moves dangerously close to cursing his own mother's womb, since the night also refers to his conception in v. 3 (Masenya). Does Job say anything about his conception itself? h 3.7 Ululation refers to a shrill celebratory sound normally made by women at the birth of a child in many traditional societies (Disabilities Group, African Biblical Hermeneutics). i 3.7 Job is using language of birth, but it also has sexual overtones. The Alzheimer's study considered DNA as the source of several family diseases, so the problem could roll back to conception, the result of intercourse, and ultimately to God's role in the act of creation. j 3.10 Job laments the night of his conception, wishing his mother's womb would have spontaneously aborted him. Is he also blaming his calamity on his mother? What about his father? What would have been the result for his parents if Job had died at birth or been a miscarriage (Masenya)? k 3.13 Death is rest, comfort, a friend. (Alzheimer's group) l 3.16 Ironically wishing your life never happened is a lot like losing your memories of it happening which is also pretty terrible (Alzheimer's group)The concern about a good burial is something Job takes for granted but cannot be assumed by all groups (Disabilities Group, African Biblical Hermeneutics). m 3.21 This section focusing on death is very important to suffering people (Disabilities, Alzheimer's). n 3.23 Job refers to himself as a man, just as in verse 3. His social location as a powerful man who has lost everything is a big reason why this story made it into the Bible (Masenya).