Beyond the Equivalence Divide: Developing a Performative Theory of Biblical Translation

Abstract

This dissertation uses a comparative analysis of Cherokee and Greek scriptures to develop a performative theory of biblical translation that argues that new Christianities are created through processes of translation. This project argues these new Christianities develop by the tracing of alternative lineal memories through collectivized remembrances that trace back to traditional indigenous beliefs and practices rather than to the early Church in first century Palestine. The narrativizing of these collective lineal memories create not only individual and communal identities, but also governing/sovereignty structures as well. This dissertation further argues that collective remembrance also entails collective forgetting. When these collective lineal memories are selectively evoked, they can result in the collective forgetting of inconvenient historical events and subject entire classes of people to abjection when their presence interferes with desired communal identities and sovereignty structures. This dissertation also includes an examination of oral traditions and hymnody because I argue they are as integral to the field of biblical studies as the study of written scriptures. This project is interdisciplinary and creates conversation partners with scholarship in translation studies, performance studies, memory studies, postcolonial studies, and Native studies. This project argues one cannot understand what is happening in processes of biblical translation outside of these interdisciplinary dialogues. Finally, the dissertation concludes that every biblical translation project has strong ethical considerations that cannot be fully appreciated outside a performative understanding of biblical translation. This work contends that biblical translation can create new communal identities through the tracing of lineal memories that can function both subversively and regressively based on changing contexts.