Ernst R Wendland

• MA Linguistics (U Wisconsin), MST (Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary), PhD African Languages & Literature (U Wisconsin)
• Professor (Full) at Stellenbosch University

Program and Abstracts for an E-Conference hosted by the South African Theological Seminary, 11-13 March, 2025

Revised Version, March 2025

This pedagogical study seeks to address the practical problem of communication in English when composing or providing theological literature for non-first-language readers. This includes materials on important biblical topics, current teaching resources, or Bible translations to be used as a source text. This article identifies some major problem a...

Version 8, December 2024 The following study notes, guide questions, and various supplementary materials have been prepared as a teaching-learning resource for a course entitled WORKSHOP ON BIBLICAL HEBREW POETRY, which will be offered at the Jerusalem Home for Bible Translators in June of 2023 (for further information, see at the following website...

Version 9.5 (December 2024): These preliminary notes and guide questions (not complete studies) were originally prepared for the Psalms-in-Context Consultants-in-Training course, which is described at the end of this document. This overview of the material to be covered during our joint study of the Psalter was supplemented as needed by other helps...

A diverse collection of short studies on the craft and challenges of translation.

This is a collection of diverse studies on "translation" derived from the internet.

This is a revision of an earlier overview of the subject. October 2024

October 2024

This study of “parallelism” in biblical Hebrew poetry has been stimulated by the recent monograph on biblical poetry by Grosser (2023). After an initial overview of the book, I summarize some of the main challenges that I encountered when trying to process the essential aspects of Grosser’s novel Gestalt-based approach. Next, from my literary-struc...

Abstract: This article has been composed in the form of a more expansive review of How We Read the Bible. The purpose is not only to provide a more detailed summary of its contents but also to engage more fully and directly with some of the Authors' assertions and conclusions. This book offers a valuable new perspective, namely, that of cognitive l...

In the first half of this study, I summarize some of the important characteristics of biblical poetry—stylistic features that need to be taken into consideration during any form-functional text analysis. Occasional questions are introduced to encourage readers to engage in the analysis of exemplifying passages. In the second section, I overview sev...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce readers to several aspects of the "frames of reference" approach for analyzing and adapting ourselves to a particular cross-cultural setting of communication. My special focus will be on the various relationships that we encounter in the mission-ministry of Bible translating. The Frames analytical model has...

How do we "read" (and interpret) biblical texts? This article presents a "structure-functional" methodology within the framework of a generic, typological approach to literary discourse. This is applied to a description and analysis of the lyric-religious poetry of the Psalter, and in particular Psalm 31. After a survey of the notion of "genre-crit...

With special reference to HOSEA and JOEL

Ezekiel is one of those biblical books that everyone knows about, but few really know. Such is a great pity because this prophet produced some of the most powerful poetry and prose of the Old Testament in defense of the holiness, sovereignty, justice, and grace of YHWH along with the righteousness and reliability of his eternal, immutable covenant....

The following is a lightly edited collection of papers prepared by seven translation consultants from seven different countries around the world. This was the final assignment of a four-week course in Biblical Hebrew poetry presented at the Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators in June 2023 by Prof. Ernst Wendland and Dr Sameh Hannah. This course...

This is a revised draft proposal (December 2023) that is still under review on behalf of South African Theological Seminary (https://sats.ac.za/).

Chichewa is a major Bantu language widely spoken as a primary or secondary mode of communication in many areas of south-east Africa. Three major translations of the Bible were produced in this language during the twentieth century: the Protestant Buku Lopatulika (1922), the Catholic Malembo Oyera (1966), and the Interconfessional Buku Loyera (1998)...

In this article the author looks at Bible translation from a more practical, rather than a theoretical, perspective. He focuses on the problem of how best to convey some of the crucial structural and rhetorical features of the biblical text through its translation today. This is very much a contextualising process that must pay sufficient attention...

The objective of my study is to suggest how several prominent stylistic characteristics of this letter—namely recursion, contrast, comparison, review, and disjunction—serve to outline the overall structure of the text, to highlight its principal themes, and to enhance the effectiveness of its major pragmatic functions, not the least of which is to...

This text (revised) is being processed for publication. You may request a copy.

To "theologize," that is, to engage in theological reasoning and exposition when composing oral, written, or multimodal discourse, has been applied continually in Africa ever since the Bible was first introduced to this continent. Whenever God's Word is conveyed in another language and cultural setting, the existential theological barrier must be b...

This is a brief literary-structural analysis and translation of Psalm 145, along with a few theological reflections on this acrostic text.

This is an older study that may still have some historical and (African) contextual relevance.

This is a linguistic and literary overview of Psalm 2 with several applications to English translation.

This paper presents a text-oriented survey of some ongoing experimentation in translating the Bible poetically in the Chichewa language of Malawi and Zambia. An initial overview features a summary of ten important stylistic characteristics of the ndakatulo popular lyric genre along with illustrations of their use and comments on their varied commun...

This study presents a rhetorical analysis of Shadreck Wame, a popular Malawian revival preacher. After an overview of the “rhetorical setting” in which these vernacular sermons were preached in the 1990s, ten “oral-rhetorical techniques” that characterize Wame’s preaching style are identified, based on a corpus of nearly 50 of his Chewa1language se...

This is a linear and concentric structural analysis of Ruth with an application to exegesis and translation.

This is a brief literary and translational reflection on the book why translation matters (the title as published, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010) by Prof Edith Grossman, with a concluding application to Psalm 13 in English and Chewa.

This is a brief thematic and structural overview of Psalm 29 with added notes for a Bible study.

This chapter 1 of my PhD Thesis (U-Wisconsin, 1979): https://www.academia.edu/1801672/Stylistic_Form_and_Communicative_Function_in_the_Nyanja_Radio_Narratives_of_Julius_Chongo

The aim of this study is to define the parameters of a literary-rhetorical (L-R) method of translating the Bible. This approach offers not only another option for rendering the Scriptures in another language, should circumstances allow, but it also makes a potential contribution to contemporary translation theory and practice. It may well be of int...

When LiFE confronts the cultural factor: Preparing an oratorical translation in a predominantly oral-aural sociocultural setting-with special reference to Qoheleth's concluding lyric lament. ABSTRACT: In keeping with the major themes of this conference, I will explore a number of issues that confront Bible translators who are working in a sociocul...

This study develops the notion of a “new song,” which is the imperative liturgical headline of Psalm 98.1 I first present a literary structural overview of the psalm: What is the meaning of this “new song” (v. 1)? I will introduce this textual analysis with a brief review of the contextual importance of music and song in the Jewish worship traditio...

A summary of, and rationale for, a "literary functional equivalence" approach to translation practice, with references.

This teaching resource was produced as part of a course on Biblical Hebrew poetry for translation consultants at the Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators and the Nida Institute in June of 2023. For further information on this textbook about Bible translation, see at: https://thebibletranslator.org/product/hebrew-poetry-in-the-bible-a-guide-for-un...

The Bible is the most translated and retranslated book in the world. The process of Bible translation involves a complex, multidisciplinary effort that is aimed at rendering what is in essence a library of diverse literary genres in the various world languages. It consists of the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament, OT), the 27 books o...

This paper presents a selective overview of what may be termed "biblical translation studies" from a practitioner's perspective. The survey begins with a short description of some of the principal types, or styles, of contemporary translation as expressed by leaders in the field, which is a creative art form as well as an experience-based craft. Ne...

2010, Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZNW) 169 (“Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter,” ed., D. Francois Tolmie): 79-111

(Mangani ndi Mwana wa Mphezi) A Nyanja Radio Drama by Julius Chongo and English Translation by Ernst Wendland

A literary-structural outline of Daniel, Version 6.5

In this chapter (3), we will take another step in our investigation of some of the ancient religious concepts of central Africa. Here we will be focusing on the diverse assortment of spirit mediators and related beings upon whom all communication of a religious nature depends. In Appendix C, we incorporate several student reports which describe the...

God may not always play an overt role in the everyday religious affairs of people, but he is nevertheless always there in a sense, for he is the First Cause and the Final Consummation of the "one thing needful", namely, "life" and all that this entails. God’s role is thus analogous to that of a “father” (uncle) in a matrilineal society, a person wh...

Revised version, February 2023

In PEACE-BUILDING IN AFRICA--BIBLICAL INSIGHTS, editors Jean-Claude Loba Mkole & Jesse N.K. Mugambi, Acton Publishers, Nairobi, Kenya, 2020.

This document was prepared as a background informational resource to accompany oral presentations (John Beekman Lectures) delivered at the Bible Translation Conference 2021 (https://www.btconference.org/ ).

A collection of published articles relating to Bible translation.

This is a set of notes and exercises based on the Hebrew text of Haggai (and a portion of Joel) prepared for a training course for Bible translation consultants in training (2021).

This book includes various papers and articles that were produced during or after the publication process of Studies in the Psalms: Literary-Structural Analysis with Application to Translation (Dallas: SIL International, 2017: https://www.academia.edu/12662909/Studies_in_the_Psalms_Literary-Structural_Analysis_with_Application_to_Translation ). Se...

This book consists of a collection of studies that I have made over the past decade (plus) that relate, more or less, to the field of “translation studies,” with special reference to its specific interface with various activities relating to Bible translation. “Translation studies is an academic interdiscipline dealing with the systematic study of...

The following is a collection of papers prepared by nine participants from seven different countries around the world (all 2nd language speakers of English!), as a final assignment of a 4-week course DISCOVERING HEBREW POETRY—Step by Step, offered by Zoom through the Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators in May 2021 by Prof. Ernst Wendland and Dr...

In this multifaceted study, the closely paired poetic texts found at the end of the book of Deuteronomy are investigated with respect to their construction, content, function, transmission, and contemporary significance. Initially, these poems seem to be distinct. Chapter 32 exhibits a stern covenantal-lawsuit warning, while chapter 33 features a r...

This document presents an overview of the theme(s) and topics to be presented at the BT2021 Conference.