Nicholas M. Creary
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233342
- eISBN:
- 9780823241774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233342.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
Fr. Ignatius Chidavaenzi and his colleagues on an interdenominational team preparing a more recent and more accurate translation of the Bible into ChiShona presented a theological explanation for the ...
More
Fr. Ignatius Chidavaenzi and his colleagues on an interdenominational team preparing a more recent and more accurate translation of the Bible into ChiShona presented a theological explanation for the meaning of the name Mwari. Claiming that of all the ChiShona names for God, the biblical scholars proposed two possible meanings based on linguistic evidence. The first proposal held that Mwari was a contraction (and incorrect spelling) of Muwari, which is derived from the ChiShona verb kuwara, “to spread”. The second proposal held that Mwari was a contraction of Muari, which derived from the third person singular of the irregular verb “to be” in ChiShona. The diametrically opposed views of Muari and Mwari—that of two German Jesuits in the 1920s and that of a MuShona biblical scholar writing in the latter years of the twentieth century—show the changes in Catholic understanding of the ChiShona name for the Christian God.Less
Fr. Ignatius Chidavaenzi and his colleagues on an interdenominational team preparing a more recent and more accurate translation of the Bible into ChiShona presented a theological explanation for the meaning of the name Mwari. Claiming that of all the ChiShona names for God, the biblical scholars proposed two possible meanings based on linguistic evidence. The first proposal held that Mwari was a contraction (and incorrect spelling) of Muwari, which is derived from the ChiShona verb kuwara, “to spread”. The second proposal held that Mwari was a contraction of Muari, which derived from the third person singular of the irregular verb “to be” in ChiShona. The diametrically opposed views of Muari and Mwari—that of two German Jesuits in the 1920s and that of a MuShona biblical scholar writing in the latter years of the twentieth century—show the changes in Catholic understanding of the ChiShona name for the Christian God.
