Religious Translation in the Early Modern Global World

This interdisciplinary volume focuses on the translations, transformations, and adaptations of religious texts across cultural and linguistic boundaries in the early modern world.

From Europe to Asia to the Americas to Africa, this book casts a wide net. Avoiding Eurocentric models centered around nation states and national languages it brings different languages, cultures, and religions into dialogue with one another by focusing on the practical goals, strategies, and uses of translation. This approach demonstrates how translations contained the cultural and religious influences of the translators themselves and were used for a variety of purposes. This juxtaposition of polycentric sites of engagement reveals unexpected commonalities, with similar patterns unfolding in very different contexts. Prominent international scholars contribute chapters investigating not only theological texts, but also alchemical books, songs, and even visual images that were deployed in translations.

Religious Translation in the Early Modern Global World is essential reading for students and researchers of early modern history, cultural history, and the history of texts and print.