(Re-)Translating Scripture in Early American Protestantism: A Comparative Study of Cotton Mather’s “Biblia Americana” and Radical Pietist Revisionings of the Bible

（重新）翻译美国早期新教中的圣经：科顿·马瑟的《美国圣经》与激进虔信派对《圣经》的修订的比较研究

• 批准号: 432593169
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Jan Stievermann
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung Kirchengeschichte
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/432593169?language=en
• 关键词: Re; Translating; Scripture; Early; American

The project aims to conduct comparative, side-by-side studies of scriptural translations that various individual Protestant exegetes and groups from British North America undertook during the early and middle decades of the eighteenth century. We ask why, how, and with the use of which resources did these New World Bible translations challenge existing translations, specifically the widely predominant King James Version (KJV) and Luther Bibles? And in what ways did these revised translations reflect particular theologies (esp. millenarian and Philadelphian speculations) and support diverging identity formations in the intellectual cross-currents of the Enlightenment and the Protestant evangelical awakenings? The project has an interdisciplinary research design that brings together interests and methods of traditional church history/history of biblical interpretation with those of the history of “lived religion”-paradigm and early American cultural and literary studies.The first sub-project deals with the manuscript Bible commentary "Biblia Americana" written by the New England theologian Cotton Mather (1663-1728). The project will examine Mather’s never-before-studied re-translations and interpretations contained in his commentaries on the biblical books of Hebrews through Revelation. Throughout Mather was concerned with amending the KJV in hundreds of places. He sought to correct philological mistakes but also to explicate the literal truth of the Bible in the light of historical and scientific knowledge, while, at the same time, elucidating its higher spiritual senses through different forms of non-literal interpretation. The second sub-project compares aspects of Mather’s "Biblia" with revisionings of the Bible and Scripture-based religious practices that German Pietist groups brought to or originated in Pennsylvania. It will specifically focus on the Schwarzenau Brethren, the Ephrata community, and the Moravians, who all engaged in "heterodox" re-translations of Scripture, especially the Song of Songs and Book of Revelation. The project will investigate how these translations were embodied in practice and supported the constitution of separate communities and identities in addition to divergent ecclesiological and missionary projects in the New World. By scrutinizing these re-translations of the Bible and comparing them to Mather’s, this project will throw into relief the unique response of German Pietists to the religious awakenings that swept the Atlantic world in the middle decades of the eighteenth century. Together, these two projects will produce a detailed and wide-ranging portrait of what connected New England Puritanism and (radical) Pietism as Bible movements.

该项目旨在对来自英属北美的不同新教释经人士和团体在18世纪初和中期进行的圣经翻译进行比较、并排研究。我们问这些新大陆圣经译本为什么、如何以及使用了哪些资源来挑战现有的译本，特别是广泛占优势的《雅各王版》(KJV)和《路德圣经》？这些修订的译本在哪些方面反映了特定的神学(特别是。千禧年和费城人的猜测)，并支持启蒙运动和新教福音派觉醒的知识交叉中不同的身份形成？该项目有一个跨学科的研究设计，将传统教会历史/圣经解释历史与“活的宗教”历史-范例和早期美国文化和文学研究的兴趣和方法结合在一起。第一个子项目涉及新英格兰神学家科顿·马瑟(1663-1728)撰写的手稿圣经评论《Biblia americana》。该项目将审查马瑟以前从未研究过的重新翻译和解释，这些重新翻译和解释包含在他对希伯来书《启示录》中的圣经书籍的评论中。在整个过程中，马瑟一直致力于在数百个地方修改KJV。他试图纠正语言学上的错误，但也要根据历史和科学知识来阐明《圣经》的字面真理，同时通过不同形式的非字面解释来阐明其更高的精神意义。第二个子项目将马瑟《圣经》的某些方面与德国虔诚派团体带到宾夕法尼亚州或起源于宾夕法尼亚州的圣经和基于圣经的宗教习俗的修订本进行了比较。它将特别关注施瓦辛努兄弟会、伊夫拉塔社区和摩拉维亚人，他们都参与了对圣经的“异端”重新翻译，特别是《诗经》和《启示录》。该项目将调查这些译本是如何在实践中体现出来的，并支持在新世界建立不同的社区和身份，以及不同的教会和传教项目。通过仔细审查这些重新翻译的圣经，并将它们与马瑟的比较，这个项目将浮现出德国虔诚主义者对18世纪中叶席卷大西洋世界的宗教觉醒的独特反应。这两个项目一起，将产生一幅详细而广泛的肖像，将新英格兰清教主义和(激进)虔诚主义作为圣经运动联系在一起。