Text and Translation

The shared and inseparable gifts of Christianity and civilization were exemplified by the Gospel and the technology of writing in which it was embodied. Resistance to the Gospel and its message could sometimes be ascribed to perverse or inadequate humanity. In Christian Europe, possession of literacy and a privileged relation to texts was a mark of spatial integration within the polis and its microcosms in the New World. As far as passionate Christians were concerned, the single most troublesome trait of Jews and Indians could be their recalcitrance when told about Christ. Rejection of Christ was central to the Christian conception of Jews and Jewishness captured in Christianity's own most sacred texts. Given the long and complex tradition of biblical hermeneutics, this chapter examines the rhetorical and political uses to which the missionaries put this privileged text in dealing with non-Christians, both in the Old World and the New World. It considers textuality, sovereignty, and authority in the Middle Ages and the early modern period, including the early period of colonialism.

Ancient history · Art · Christianity · Civilization · Early Christianity · Early modern period · Gospel · Hermeneutics · Humanity · Hybridity · Literature · Political science · Politics · Rhetorical question · Sovereignty · Textuality · Theology · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies