THE GOSPEL OF ST. MARK IN AWABAKAL
The version of the English Bible which was used
by Lancelot Threlkeld and other colonial missionaries who came
to south-eastern Australia was the King James Bible. This translation
was initiated by King James I of England in 1604, but not completed
until 1611. The "Authorized Version" was the standard
used by English-speaking Protestants for the next three centuries
and it exerted a profound influence on English literature and
language.
It is likely that Threlkeld and Biraban (Magill)
kept a copy of the King James Bible before them as they worked
on their translation of the Gospels into the language of the Lake
Macquarie Aborigines which Fraser later called Awabakal. The Gospel
of St Mark, which was never published by Threlkeld, is the shortest
of the four gospels, and is thought by many authorities to be
both the earliest and the one which placed the most emphasis on
the humanity of Christ.
Translation of the Bible, even of a short narrative
text such as the Gospel of St Mark, presented its translators
with enormous difficulties. The difficulties lie not just in finding
Awabakal words for animals, plants and objects for which there
was no native equivalent, such as camel, synagogue, Sadducee,
or crucifixion. For these, Threlkeld and Biraban often simply
resorted to using the same word as that used in the King James
Bible. The difficulty lay in trying to use a language which served
the needs of a hunter gatherer people to evoke the concepts, moral
world and religious assumptions of the people of the late Roman
Empire, as translated into seventeenth-century English. How do
you say "God" or "soul" or "heaven"
or "sin" in Awabakal? To answer these questions, you
may wish to examine Threlkeld's Gospel of St. Mark.
The text of the King James Bible presented here
for comparison with the Awabakal, is taken from the Bible Gateway
<http://www.biblegateway.com/>.
This web site allows quick comparison of texts in many languages
and published versions. Follow the links below to the fourteen
chapters of the KJV.
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