The growth of the Church in the last two centuries has been paralleled by an explosion in the number of languages into which all or part of the Bible has been translated. This book is perhaps the first serious effort to examine a number of issues related to that phenomenon, among them how theology can affect the kind of translation prepared, and how the type of translation itself can affect the theology of a church. It also addresses the topics of why a church generally develops faster and with a deeper faith if it has the Bible; how decisions of text, canon, exegesis, type of language and...

This volume evaluates Thomas Bradwardine's view of time as a mathematical, philosophical and theological concept within the context of ancient and medieval discussions of the problem of time.
The book begins with an historiographical analysis of Bradwardine's mathematical and theological works, followed by an examination of the problem of time in classical, early medieval and thirteenth-century texts. Next, a series of chapters surveys Bradwardine's view of time as it related to proportionality, contingency, continuity and predestination. A final chapter establishes Bradwardine's place...

The twenty articles collected in this volume cover a wide range of subjects concerned with the Old Testament: religion (the divine name Shaddai; dominant religious ideas between 1500 and 600 B.C.; exclusiveness; the kingship of God), The Pentateuch (Genesis xviiii-xix; Og's iron bed; laws in Deuteronomy and Middle Assyrian laws; the Pentateuch, The Deuteronomist and Spinoza), the historical books, history and archaeology (Ugarit and Israelite origins; Arameans; the system of the twelve tribes of Israel; the text of the historical books; 1 Kings xiii; places for women in Israelite cities), the...

The resurgence of indigenous cultures and the reappearance of their ancient spiritualities, during the 1990s, is of great interest to social scientists. Several such cultures are featured in this book. The indigenous populations of struggling multi-ethnic 'democracies' in Latin America are demanding to be integrated into the national mainstream, together with their holistic values of family, economics and ecology. Institutional Christianity is being challenged by indigenous theologies that are critical of both traditional Christianity and liberation theology. While some see here a danger of...

This book is a study of the writings of a group of Chinese Christian apologists in the seventeenth century, focussing on Xu Guangqi. Eleven of his shorter writings are included in Chinese and in translation.
The first part of the book is devoted to a study of Latin Christian apologists within the Roman Empire to provide a comparison for the analysis of Xu Guangqi's work. Minucius Felix, Tertullian and Lactantius are shown to have faced, in regard to imperial power and Graeco-Roman culture, a situation comparable to that of Xu Guangqi, Li Zhizao and Yang Tinqyun in regard to imperial power...

A study of the life and times of Bishop S.I.J. Schereschewsky (1831-1906) and his translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into northern vernacular (Mandarin) Chinese. Based largely on archival materials, missionary records and letters, the book includes an analysis of the translated Chinese text together with Schereschewsky's explanatory notes.
The book examines his Jewish youth in Eastern Europe, conversion, American seminary study, journey to Shanghai and Beijing, mission routine, the translating committee's work, his tasks as Episcopal bishop in Shanghai and the founding of St. John's...

This is a revised edition of the author's The Nestorians and Their Muslim Neighbors (Princeton University Press, 1961). Early in the nineteenth century, the Aramaic-speaking "Nestorian" Christians received special attention when American Protestant missions decided to educate and reform them to help meet the challenge that Islam presented to the growing missionary movements. When archaeologist Layard further publicized the historic minority as "Assyrians," the name acquired a new connotation when other forces at work in the region - religious, nationalistic, imperialistic - entangled...

Using mainly hitherto unstudied primary materials, this monograph studies a very significant episode in Chinese Christianity. Focusing on the origins and earliest history of Protestantism in South Fujian, this analytical-critical study investigates the evolution of the churches which pioneered in indigenisation and ecclesiastical union in China during the nineteenth century. Some subjects studied are primitive missionary objectives and methods, the relationship between the 'Talmage ideal' and the Three-self concept, and the nature and dynamics of 'native' religious work. Extremely useful is...

This book explores a range of societies in and around the Pacific and southern Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that encountered religions introduced from elsewhere, or fashioned their own responses to already established religious traditions. These changes observed through the responses of the receiving societies indicate that religious change is a creative dynamic, rather than a passive acceptance of new ideas, beliefs and practices. While change is often triggered by the introduction of new understandings, it can only become entrenched within a community when it takes on...