How do you translate the word "God"?

The picture "At the revision of the Ga Bible in Abokobi", taken between 1900 and 1902, shows Ghanaians and Europeans working on a Bible translation. Photo from the archive of the Basel Mission, BMA-30.05.012

"Revising the Ga Bible in Abokobi" is the title of this picture taken between 1900 and 1902. It shows five men at a table in a study in the town of Abokobi on the Gold Coast (now Ghana). They are the three local pastors Carl Christian Reindorf, Ludwig Richter and a Mr. Saba, as well as the Basel missionaries Christian Kölle and Jakob Wilhelm Wertz. The table is full of books.

It is noticeable that the three natives are more elegantly dressed than the Europeans. In accounts of the history of the Basel mission, it is always emphasized that the missionaries had to learn the native languages. Today we see with awe the resulting translations of the Bibles into the Ga, Twi or Duala languages with all the preparatory work, drafts and notes. Nevertheless, it is almost unimaginable what achievements the missionaries had to make together with natives in order to create these works.

The struggle for terms and formulations
Neither the structure nor the grammar of the local languages were known to the first missionaries when they arrived in Africa. Often there were no written words - those who wanted to record them found that the letters used in Europe were not sufficient to record all the sounds. Before any thought could be given to translating the Bible, the missionaries had to listen, to understand words and phrases. This is how the first dictionaries and grammars were created. However, learning the language was not enough. Translating the Bible was also about immersing oneself in the conceptual world of the natives: How do you translate "God" for a people where there is a whole system of gods and sub-gods? How do you represent the devil? How does one deal with rituals that have a very different meaning in Africa than those depicted in the Bible? Translation did not mean simply transferring the text from one language to another, but the content had to be translated in the truest sense of the word. All these steps are hidden behind this picture. One can vividly imagine how individual terms and formulations were wrestled with. The picture shows how locals and Europeans worked together as equals. Everyone involved contributed their knowledge and experience to create a joint work.

Text: Patrick Moser, archivist at Mission 21

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