Conference report by Gosnell L. Yorke

Published 2006-05-19

The year 1999 was an important one in relation to the historic interdisciplinary, pan-African and international conference held at the University of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN), September 19-23, 2005. The first reason why the year 1999 is of such significance is that, in April, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, a Christian theologian and missiologist, and now the Deputy Executive Dean of the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA), was invited to address us in Pretoria as a group (about 30 of us) at our annual Consultation. We were mostly United Bible Societies (UBS) Translation Consultants serving in the Africa Area at the time. The second reason is that, in August of that year (1999), the Society for the Study of the New Testament (Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas—SNTS) held its first annual meeting in Africa. Those meetings were held at the University of Pretoria (UP) and followed immediately by a post-SNTS conference held at the Hamanskraal campus of UP. The post-conference attracted both African biblical scholars (OT and NT) and Christian theologians. UBS (Africa Area) also had a strong contingent of eight Translation Consultants and conducted a panel discussion, moderated by the present reporter.

From the UBS side, both events in 1999 mentioned above were driven by the fundamental conviction that there is a long-overdue need in Africa to bring African biblical scholars, theologians and translation personnel together to share an academic forum where they can engage each other in dialogue and even debate regarding matters of common concern and, ultimately, for the benefit of both Bible translation and theological education on the continent as a whole.

Writing in another context, the present reporter, among several others, had reason to bemoan the fact that, heretofore, there has been little or no meaningful and prolonged interaction between the African theologian and translator; cf. Gosnell L. Yorke and Peter M. Renju (eds.), Bible Translation and African Languages. Nairobi, Kenya: Acton Publishers (2004) 2-4. One of the notable ironies of the modern history of the church in Africa is that this lack of serious engagement as between the two inter-related disciplines of African theology and Bible translation transpired at exactly the same time during which we find, on the one hand, the proliferation of mission schools and seminaries, Bible colleges and institutes, and even Religious Studies Departments in state and private universities across the continent and, on the other hand, the concurrent proliferation of projects for translating the Bible into a number of the approximately 2000 languages in Africa. More often than not, and even when the National Bible Society (NBS) has already published the Bible (or a NT) in the applicable indigenous African language, we find that the African theologian has tended to give short schrift to that NBS publication. For the most part, the basis for theological formation, reflection and teaching in Africa has been (and, to a large extent, continues to be) based on Bibles published in various European languages—be it English, French, Portuguese or Spanish. And this is true even among those outstanding African theologians supposedly committed to the grounding of the gospel in the African soul and soil; to the commendable programme of contextualization or inculturation against the backdrop of issues such as land dispossession, the ongoing pauperization of the people of the continent, neo-colonialism and globalization. 

The September 2005 conference: The make-up of its participants

Thanks to the organizers of the annual meeting of the Old Testament Society of South Africa (OTSSA) and the Society for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (SASNES), we were able to hold our first-ever interdisciplinary, pan-African and international conference. It was held at the same time and venue as the OTSSA/SASNES meetings, namely, September 19-23, 2005 and at UKZN with Professor Gerald O. West serving as our very competent host. The conference attracted African biblical scholars, theologians, linguists and translation personnel not only from across the continent but from both Europe and North America as well, including the editor of BOTSA. And to give practical effect to the UBS concern and fundamental conviction mentioned above, a three-member Steering Committee was established prior to the conference under the leadership of Professor Christo van der Merwe, Director of the Centre for Bible Interpretation and Translation in Africa at Stellenbosch University (SU); a Centre which facilitated greatly the overall logistics in terms of the Bible translation component of the conference such as issuing the Call for Papers, vetting the various Abstracts received as a result, and appointing Chairs for the various sessions. The other two members were Dr Ernst Wendland, UBS Translation Consultant based in Zambia and an Adjunct Profesor at SU; and the present reporter, UBS Translation Consultant and Professor Extraordinarius in the Department of NT at UNISA. Credit should also be given to Dr Aloo Mojola, the Africa Area Coordenator (ATCO) of Bible translation for UBS for giving the present reporter his full support and encouragement as he (the reporter) was asked to explore, for more than two years, how best to bring about a conference of this kind.

And at the conference itself, some of the many interesting and informative papers read included the following from the SASNES Section: a) "Origin and Identity: Re-reading Exodus as a Polemical Narrative then (Palestine) and now (Africa)" (Professor Hendrik Bosman); and b) Various Colloquia such as "Challenging Female Embodiment: Wisdom, Law and Text" (in two sessions). From the OTSSA Section, we had, for example, a) "Decolonizing the Teaching of the Old Testament in Africa" (Professor David Adamo); b) "Interpreting Solomon in Africa: A Postcolonial Perspective" (Professor Knut Holter) and c) "Teaching the Old Testament in Africa" (in two sessions).

In addition to the several excellent SASNES, OTSSA and translation papers read in parallel and other sessions, there were also a number of integrated plenaries at which issues from all three disciplines were aired and discussed in an open forum. Mention should be made, for example, of the Van Selm Memorial Lecture given by Professor Johann Cook: "Reconsidering Septuagintal Origins". And in terms of translation, we had both Dr Ronnie Sim from the Nairobi Evangelical School of Theology (NEGST): "Which Academic Disciplines Concern Bible translation in Africa, and How?", and Dr Aloo Mojola: "What are the Outstanding Problems and Challenges that confront Contemporary Bible Interpretation and Translation in Africa?" Perhaps, it is not inappropriate that I also mention, in passing, that all nine UBS Translation Consultants in attendance read papers at the conference as well. From the side of African theology, we had Professor Maluleke: "The Next Phase in Vernacular Bible Discourse: Echoes from Hamanskraal". And not to be left unmentioned is the integrated plenary at which we had both Professor Isabel Phiri, the first woman Chair of the Department of Theology at UKZN, and Professor Jesse Mugambi of the University of Nairobi and Professor Extraorinarius at UNISA as well. The title of Phiri’s presentation was: "African Women theologians talk to African Biblical scholars and Bible translators"; and that of Mugambi was: "Some Problems of Authority in Biblical Interpretation."

I would be remiss if mention is not made of the fact as well that, at the conference, we had not only much memorable food for thought but much food for elsewhere as well. The lunches and evening meals in the University Club were both nutritious and delicious.

Plans for the future

It is our hope that, in spite of the real and, at times, seemingly overwhelming financial and other challenges facing the continent, that ways will be found to make this interdisciplinary, pan-African and international gathering a well-established tradition in Africa. During the closing session of the conference, for example, Dr Louis Jonker, Secretary of the OTSSA, gave expression to the silent thoughts, hopes and dreams of many of us, namely, that what we have begun so well will be continued in one form or another—perhaps next time, with a more focused concentration on a particular Biblical passage(s) which we can then all translate coming from our very different disciplinary perspectives and then "comparing notes"; discussing and even debating among ourselves about the intricacies of Bible translation, as we commit ourselves to the improvement in quality of both African theology and Bible translation in Africa.

Dr Gosnell Yorke, United Bible Societies, P.O. Box 3768, 1620 Kempton Park, South Africa. E-mail: yorke@ubs-sarsc.org.za