Strange Names of God

One of the most precarious and daunting tasks for sixteenth-century European missionaries in the cross-cultural mission frontiers was translating the name of «God» (Deus) into the local language. When the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) introduced the Chinese term Shangti as the semantic equivalent of Deus, he made one of the most innovative cross-cultural missionary translations. Ricci's employment of Shangti was neither a simple rewording of a Chinese term nor the use of a loan-word, but was indeed a risk-taking «identification» of the Christian God with the Confucian Most-High, Shangti. Strange Names of God investigates the historical progress of the semantic configuration of Shangti as the divine name of the Christian God in China by focusing on Chinese intellectuals' reaction to the strangely translated Chinese name of God.

Auteur

The Author: Sangkeun Kim received his Ph.D. in Mission, Ecumenics and History of Religions from Princeton Theological Seminary with the honor of magna cum laude. He is Assistant Professor of Missiology and History of Religions at Yonsei University, Korea, as well as the author of From the Fall of Jerusalem to the Rise of Southern Christianity and 30 People Who Changed the Course of Christian History.

Résumé
«'Strange Names of God' is a fascinating analysis of the earliest and most crucial encounters between western Christians and the religious traditions of other continents, making fresh use of eastern and western contemporary sources. It is a work to engage historians and missiologists alike.» (Andrew F. Walls, Professor of Mission Studies, Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non-Western World, University of Edinburgh)
«While Matteo Ricci has been the subject of many books, few have done this great Jesuit exemplar of missionary virtues as much justice as this one. Empathetically and yet critically, Sangkeun Kim explores new facets of Ricci's interactions with Confucian China and demonstrates that China is just as fertile as Africa for adducing evidence of the 'translation principle' in Christian history that Andrew Walls has taught us to discern.» (Richard Fox Young, Professor of History of Religions, Princeton Theological Seminary)