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Aloo Osotsi Mojola

Mojola is a professor at St. Paul's University, in Limuru, Kenya where he teaches translation studies, philosophy and theology. He worked as a translation consultant and was involved in sixty Bible translations in Africa.

Education

Mojola holds a Ph. D from University of Nairobi. He is also an honorary professor in the Faculty of Theology at Pretoria University in South Africa.

Career

Mojola worked with the United Bible Societies from 1983 as a translation consultant for over 30 years He was the Africa area translation coordinator.

Translation

Mojola in his articles describes role of bible translators as providing access to the ancient text as it generates complex and often ambiguous attitudes. Many people read or hear a translated Bible, a domesticated Bible which by means of translators’ mediation, has crossed boundaries of time and space, of language and culture.

Bible Translation and Gender

Mojola's interest in the subject of Bible Translation and Gender began from his work in Bible Translation with the United Bible Societies, spanning a period of over 30 years, beginning from 1983 when I stepped down from my work as a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Nairobi, Kenya, to embark on a career in Bible Translation with the Bible Societies in Africa. This required retraining and a serious commitment to study biblical languages and acquire skills in biblical exegesis, historical, social and cultural analysis, literary and discourse analysis and so on. Bible translation, indeed the work of translation in general, is by its very nature an interdisciplinary or cross-disciplinary activity and calling. I spent many years working with Bible translations in the languages of Eastern Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Eastern D.R. Congo) as a translation consultant and later as the Africa Translation Coordinator for the United Bible Societies. At the latest count I was surprised to note that I have been privileged to work with or to contribute to midwifing over 60 different Bibles and New Testaments in various African languages. This is humbling and at the same time something for which to thank God. During this period I encountered and grappled with numerous texts that required paying attention to questions of gender and specifically gender in Bible translation, or how gender is handled in biblical texts across languages and cultures – with specific reference to African realities. My involvement as the director of a Kenyan Non- Governmental Organization (NGO), Men for the Equality of Men and Women (MEW), that champions and defends the equality of the sexes has also helped me to appreciate better the importance of gender equality locally and globally.

Mojola examines issues of gender in Bible translation and how the dominant patriarchal framework that underlies biblical cultures, including both traditional and contemporary cultures, influences biblical interpretation and ensuing Bible translations in diverse languages. He explains that his framework undermines gender-neutral or gender-sensitive interpretations and translations of the biblical text in favour of the dominant patriarchal tradition.

Belief in biblical inerrancy and infallibility tends to support to the patriarchal standpoint in spite of the diversity and variety of numerous contested, differing and even opposing interpretations on many key biblical teachings. He challenges the role of patriarchalism in biblical interpretation and translation drawing on insights from gender studies, translation studies, biblical studies and cultural studies. Mojola interrogates the ways in which the Bible is used to defend patriarchalism and proposes a gender-sensitive approach rooted in the principles of justice, fairness and the equality of both male and female as created in the divine image.

Membership

Mojola is a board member for the Kenyan NGO, Men for the Equality of Men and Women.

Publications

• The Power of Bible Translation