A Critical Examination of the Translation Philosophy of the Asante-Twi Bible

Yaw Worae ORCID iD & Jonathan E.T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor ORCID iD

Issue: Vol.4  No.2 February 2023  Article 2  pp.118-127
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2023422 |   Published online 20th February, 2023
© 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Bible translation activities have been documented since the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity in the period of the 5th century BCE (Before the Common Era). In Ghana, the earliest translation of portions of Scripture was in Ga in 1805. Bible translation into mother tongues overtly or covertly employs one or more of the philosophies known in translating the Bible. This article examined the philosophy that underpinned the translation of the Asante-Twi Bible, a mother-tongue Scripture that is widely used by the Akan-speaking people of Ghana. Two texts (Acts 1:12 and Hebrews 12:1) were examined exegetically through the lens of mother tongue biblical hermeneutics. The researcher discovered that the two main theories of formal and dynamic equivalences have been employed where appropriate in the translation. However, there are a lot of passages (such as Jewish systems of measurements and dates) that call for using appropriate equivalences in the mother-tongue to make the message of the New Testament understandable and unambiguous. The article also argues for the need for commentaries in the mother-tongue Bibles.

Keywords: Bible translation, theories of translation, skopos theory, functional equivalence, formal equivalence, Asante-Twi Bible, mother tongue biblical hermeneutics.

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Yaw Worae is a PhD candidate of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi. His research areas cover New Testament and Bible translation studies. He also researches on the relationship between Bible translation and Church growth in Ghana.

Jonathan Edward Tetteh Kuwornu-Adjaottor is an Associate Professor in New Testament and Mother -Tongue Biblical Hermeneutics in the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology – Kumasi Ghana.

Worae, Y & Kuwornu-Adjaottor, J.E.T. “A Critical Examination of the Translation Philosophy of the Asante-Twi Bible” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 4, no.2 (2023):118-127.  https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2023422

© 2023 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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