Abstract
What language should Christians in Aotearoa New Zealand use to talk about the atonement today? The gospel in the Christian Scriptures recounts the joyful significance of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection through language about beneficial deaths, sacrifice, ransom, victory, and so. This language was embedded in the biblical authors’ cultural context: they used Greek words whose meaning was filled out by ancient cultural practices. However, culturally embedded biblical language raises challenges for audiences in Aotearoa New Zealand who do not speak Greek and are not familiar with the ancient practices of beneficial deaths, sacrifice, ransom, or victory. This thesis develops a model for contextualising atonement language based upon an inter-disciplinary foundation of biblical studies, atonement theology, cognitive linguistics, and anthropology.
Part I explores the nature of atonement language. I outline a cognitive linguistic and embodied critical realist foundation and explore the relationship between the enculturated events of the gospel and the enculturated linguistic forms that articulate it. Based upon this foundation, I explore various ways that the apostle Paul and three representative theologians (Irenaeus of Lyon, Anselm of Canterbury, and Martin Luther) chose, developed, delimited, and related atonement language based upon Scripture and their culture. I also explore atonement language as literal and metaphorical. Atonement language, especially metaphors, are valuable because they facilitate understanding through suggestive comparison to other cultural practices. This both enables communication within similar cultures and creates challenges across cultures.
Part II addresses this challenge. I develop two principles for contextualisation. Critical dynamic equivalence integrates key insights from Charles Kraft’s dynamic equivalence transculturation and Paul Hiebert’s critical contextualisation on a cognitive linguistic foundation. Subversive fulfilment explains how atonement language both fulfils and subverts human cultures and religion. These two principles should be expressed through the three methods of translation, relocation, and location. Translation is the first method of contextualisation where the words of Scripture are translated into the target language. Relocation and location are about finding supplementary vocabulary in culture to use alongside translated language. Whereas in translation the original and target cultures are bridged on the level of words, in relocation and location they are bridged on the level of cultural practices, and the words arising from them.
Part III applies this model of contextualisation to three case studies for my own context of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is hoped this project will aid gospel communicators in considering how to proclaim the gospel using local language and resources.