Scriptura: Journal for Biblical, Theological and Contextual Hermeneutics https://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub <p>Scriptura is an independent journal which publishes contributions in the fields of Biblical, theological, and contextual hermeneutics, broadly understood. It is international in scope, but special attention is given to topics and issues emerging from or relevant to Southern Africa. Scriptura publishes contributions in English but also in other languages relevant to the Southern African region (such as Afrikaans, Xhosa, Sesotho, Zulu, French and German).</p> en-US <p>Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this Journal.</p><p>This is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.</p><p>Authors may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.</p><p>A copy of the authors’ publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:</p><ul><li>Non-commercial personal webpage or blog.</li><li>Institutional webpage.</li><li>Authors Institutional Repository.</li></ul><p>The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: “This is an electronic version of an article published in Scriptura, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX–XXX”, DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (<a href="/pub">http://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub</a>) may be found.</p><p>Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University’s’ Institutional Repository SUNScholar.</p><p>Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.</p><p>The following license applies:</p><p><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0</a></p> scholar@sun.ac.za (Prof Marius J Nel) em4@sun.ac.za (Estelle Muller) Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:34:50 +0000 OJS 3.1.2.4 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 An Appraisal of ḇǝḡan-‘êḏen, “Garden of Eden” (Genesis 2:15) in Akan Mother-Tongue Bibles https://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/2244 <p><em>All the existing Akan Mother-tongue Bibles’ renderings of the phrase, ḇǝḡan-‘êḏen, from the source text, have seemed partial. This study employed an exegetical method in which Genesis 2:15 was contextually, textually, semantically, and morpho-syntactically analysed and its translations in the Akan Mother-tongue Bibles assessed. Having scrutinised ancient texts such as the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and their parallels with Akan Mother-tongue Bibles regarding the text, it is argued in this paper that the Hebrew phrase, ḇǝḡan-‘êḏen could be suitably translated as </em><strong><em>turo fɛɛfɛ</em></strong><em>, </em><em>in the Asante-Twi Bible (AsTB) and Akuapim-Twi Bible (AkTB) and <strong>ture fɛɛfɛw</strong></em><em>, </em><em>“beautiful garden,” in the Mfantse-Twi Bible (MfTB). This is a call to remain faithful to the context of the source text and the target language. The proposed Twi phrase is in keeping with the Septuagint which expresses ‘êḏen, (eden) as παραδείσῳ paradeisō (beautiful, delightful and blissful). It is believed that this would advance mother-tongue theologising regarding Christian environmental discourse among Akan/Twi readers. </em></p> Emmanuel Twumasi-Ankrah Copyright (c) 2026 Scriptura: Journal for Biblical, Theological and Contextual Hermeneutics https://scriptura.journals.ac.za/pub/article/view/2244 Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:33:52 +0000