| They had little sense that other cultures and other people had merit or deserved respect | "People of the Book" unsurprisingly translates many an early vernacular name for Christian missionaries among African, Asian, and Native American people of both hemispheres |
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| This identity comprises the Christian converts among evangelized cultures, the more recently evangelized the more natural so, since for many of them, just as for the English-speaking people, the first written texts ever produced in their language have been a portion of the Bible | Many westerners believed that it was their duty as Christians to set an example and to educate others |
The fact that these missionaries put enormous effort into reducing the language of these people to writing so as to provide a written translation of the Bible - an activity which, under such organizations as the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the United Bible Societies, has resulted in at least part of the Christian Bible now being available in 2,100 languages - has lent an identification with the phrase among evangelical Christians in particular as strong as pertains among Jews.
14| " In the early Christian experience the New Testament was added to the whole Jewish "Tanakh" an acronym from Torah, the Law, Nebi'im, the prophets, and Kethubim, the other canonical writings | Missionaries were the first to meet and learn about many people and were the first to develop writing for those without a written language |
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| Nor is it unusual that the badge should be worn proudly as one means of resisting further denigration: one need only think of Puritans, Methodists, Quakers, and Shakers | Jerome's translation tended more and more to be bound up as a single volume, had for those to whom the Christian missionaries came bearing it all the import of a unified locus of authority: " the Book |
Though first intended pejoratively, "People of the Book" in Jewish tradition came to be accepted with pride as a legitimate reference to a culture and religious identity rooted fundamentally in Torah, the original book of the Law.
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