늦봄 문익환 목사의 신학적 텍스트와 콘텍스트

Abstract

As a celebration of the centennial anniversary of his birth, this article will explore the theological significance of Rev. Moon Ik Hwan. Moon’s major theological contributions were, first his vernacular theology, and second the struggle of spiritual poverty. The first (expressed in terms of his emphasis on the spoken word) was the mark of his later years, a focus on simple verbal concepts in contrast to complex academic terms, or written words. Moon took the lead in translating the Hebrew Bible into Korean, a project to produce a Common Translation Bible in which Protestants cooperated with the Korean Catholic Church. Rev. Moon presented the paper, “From Hebrew to Korean: Problems of Bible Translation,” in 1974. He argued that western grammar does not fit Bible translation theory. He suggested Eugene A. Nida’s translation theory for the first time in Korea. In general, western grammar categorizes such things as nouns, verbs, adverbs, propositions, etc. According to Moon, however, Bible translation requires more a more universal experience and recognition of such concepts as abstract words, object words, event words, and relation words. In each stage the above mentioned equivalent word plays major role in analyzing Rev. Moon’s theology. For example, event word, implied action or movement, and reflects his own propensity in ministry to take action and jump into the current of events. Moreover, the object word tells what is standard. At last, relation word, known proposition, explains between two like the possessive case. Rev. Moon released several academic articles and general columns after spending a lot of time studying the Bible. Early on his time was consumed with the text In later life, however, Moon turns his attention to the events of real history. For Rev. Moon, the text became inseparable from the context in which it was understood. There was a free intercourse between the two. It is because there is no boundary between text and context, as he presents in his paper “The Hebraic outlook of the world.” Moon’s vernacular theology as spoken word is easy for everyone to understand, his theological journey is for the poor but he himself finally becomes poor like “the people at the end of the world.” His theology is summarized as a prophetic life and praxis.