23 - The Bible in Asia

Summary

This chapter explores some distinctive features of the reception history of the Bible in Asia. Asia has had its own share of biblical controversies. Asian debates were waged under the rubric of national struggle and national identity in a colonial context. One of the earliest textual confrontations in Asia was that between the Bengali Rammohun Roy and the Baptist missionary Joshua Marshman. The chapter discusses the employment of the Bible in a multi-religious context, highlights four Asian portrayals of Jesus and their distinctive features: Keshub Chunder Sen's idea of Asiatic Christ; the portrayal by T. C. Chao; the portrayal of Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo; and the Asian American Rita Nakashima Brock's portrayal of Jesus. The chapter also presents the recent surfacing of minority voices such as the dalits, burakumin, women and indigenous people and the two recent entrants on the scene, namely post-colonialism and Asian diasporic interpretation.