ROLE OF CULTURE IN BIBLE INTERPRETATION: A REFERENCE TO ASANTE-TWI BIBLE READING COMMUNITY

Emmanuel Foster Asamoah

Abstract


Bible interpretation plays a major role in helping the local indigenes to understand the gospel message in their mother-tongue. Since the Bible was written in the cultural settings of the original audience, which is different from the culture of the present reader, Bible interpreters try to import the culture of the original readers in the process of interpreting the Bible; making it difficult for present readers to understand some of the concepts of the Judeo-Christian scriptures. Using Paul Hiebert’s suggestion for Bible interpreters and missiologists to make the gospel have a proper meaning to the local indigenes through proper interpretation, this article argues that Bible interpreters should interpret the Bible into the Asante-Twi reading community considering their culture, as Bible readers cannot be separable from their culture. It also proposes that proper Bible interpretation should meet the cognitive, affective, and evaluative dimension of the new environment such as the Asante, Ghanaian, or African culture to help the Asante-Twi (Ghanaian or African) reading community to understand God’s word in their environment.

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Keywords


Bible interpretation, culture, dimensions of culture, Asantefoc, Asante-Twi Bible

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejsss.v5i5.892

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