Abstract

TWUMASI-ANKRAH, Emmanuel. An appraisal of ,ḇǝḡan-'êḏen,"Garden of Eden" (Genesis 2:15) in Akan Mother-tongue Bibles. Scriptura [online]. 2026, vol.125, n.1, pp.1-14. ISSN 2305-445X.  https://doi.org/10.7833/125-1-2244.

All the existing Akan Mother-tongue Bibles' renderings of the phrase, ḇǝḡan-'êḏen, from the source text, seemed partial. This study employed an exegetical method, where Genesis 2:15 was contextually, textually, semantically, and morpho-syntactically analysed and its translations in the Akan Mother-tongue Bibles assessed. Having scrutinized ancient texts such as the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and their parallel with Akan Mother-tongue Bibles regarding the text, it is argued in this paper that the Hebrew phrase, ḇǝḡan-'êḏen could be suitably translated as turo fɛɛfɛ, in the Asante-Twi Bible (AsTB) and Akuapim-Twi Bible (AkTB) and ture fɛɛfɛw, "beautiful garden," in the Mfantse-Twi Bible (MfTB). This is a call to remain faithful to the context of the source text and the target language. The proposed Twi phrase is in keeping with the Septuagint which expresses 'êḏen, (eden) as παραδείσῳ paradeisō (beautiful, delightful and blissful). It is believed that this would advance mother-tongue theologizing regarding Christian environmental discourse among Akan/Twi readers.

Keywords : Garden of Eden; Genesis 2:15; Akan mother-tongue Bibles; Twi Bible.

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