Lee P. (copiousreader) reviewed on
Helpful Score: 1
This is the story of a Bruce Olson, a 19 year old American youth who went, on his own (i.e., with close to zero support from anyone), as a missionary to the Motilone, one of the most feared and least understood Indian tribes in South America. He nearly died several times but in the end seems to have converted the greater part of the tribe to Christianity. He did several things that were quite unusual. Two accomplishments that stick in my mind were: 1) he and the Indians composed original hymns in their peculiar musical language, which is reported to sound eerie and dissonant -- almost demonic -- to Western ears; and 2) he went to great extremes to use dynamic equivalence in translating the Bible into their language. For example, he completely reversed the metaphor used by Christ in Matt. 7:24-27; because in that tribe's culture, only a fool would build his house on a rock, and the obvious wise place to build a house is on *sand.* Architectural references were also modified, as in their culture the box-like rectangular architecture familiar to us is considered ugly; "virtuous" architecture is all round. And so on.
