A Study of ὄχλους (Crowd) In Matthew 5:1: Implication For Asante-Twi Bible Readers

ISSUE: Vol.5  No.2 June 2019 Article 12  pp.121 – 128
AUTHORS: J. E. T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor & Samuel Kodom
DOI : 10.32051/06241912

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ABSTRACT

The Bible came to us in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek; through the ages, it has been translated into many languages. But does it lose its meaning when translated? This has been a question for most people who read and used the Bible. Using the Mother-tongue Biblical Hermeneutics methodology, this paper delves into the meaning of the akuakuo in the Asante-Twi context and its usage in Matthew 5:1 to represent Jesus seeing the multitude; vis-à-vis an exegesis of the Greek word ὄχλους, to find its equivalence in the Asante-Twi. The study brought to light that, akuakuo implies groups, which the Greek text does not talk about; and therefore, dɔm which refers to crowd or multitude is the best for the rendition of ὄχλους. The paper has thus added a Ghanaian/African interpretation of Matthew 5:1. It is being recommended to the Bible Society of Ghana that, in the future revision of the Asante-Twi Bible, nnipadɔm should be used to translate “crowd” in Matthew 5:1.

J. E. T KUWORNU-ADJAOTTOR, PhD, is an Associate Professor of New Testament & Mother-tongue Biblical Hermeneutics in the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. SAMUEL KODOM, BA, is a Teaching and Research Assistant in the Department of Religious Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

Kuwornu-Adjaottor, J. E. T., and Kodom, Samuel. “A Study of ὄχλους (Crowd) in Matthew 5:1: Implications for Asante-Twi Bible Readers.” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies 5, no.2 (2019): 121-128. https://doi.org/10.32051/06241912

© 2020 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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