Akan eschatology -- The nature of the spirit -- The spirit incarnate -- Manifestation of the spirit -- The ethical pathway.

The eminent Ghanaian philosopher Kwasi Wiredu confronts the paradox that while Western cultures recoil from claims of universality, previously colonized peoples, seeking to redefine their identities, insist on cultural particularities.

Postcolonial theoretical examinations on the translation of the Bible in Africa have revealed the systematic process of domination and restructuring of the worldview of Africans. The colonial agenda that coloured the missiological thrust influenced the choice of words and concepts used to translate the Scriptures. By examining the word Elohim in Psalm 82, this article highlights how this development is realised in the translation of the Asante Twi Bible. For instance, in Psalm 82, the plural Elohim has been translated as (...) anyame in the Asante Twi Bible, a translation that is not only inappropriate but alters the religious worldview of the Asante people. As a mission agenda, the term anyame was coined to redefine the religion of the Akan people as polytheism. This redefinition has had a profound and longstanding impact on the language and religious thinking of the people. At the least, this article recommends a constructive reading of Psalm 82 in the Asante Twi Bible in order to decolonise it from colonial impositions that sought to wrongly qualify the life and thought of the people. At the most, the article calls on African biblical scholars to pay more attention to the impact of colonialism in their interpretation of the Bible in order to draw attention to changes in structure of the indigenous language and thought patterns, and to look for creative ways to redeem traditions of the African people.Contribution: The study demonstrates the continuous need to decolonise the Bible in Africa in order to help recover some of Africa’s religio-cultural identity lost during the missionary drive. (shrink)

This paper examines Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and the notions of reincarnation in Onyewuenyi and Majeed with a view to showing how convergence and divergence of thought in the Nietzschean, Onyewuenyean and Majeedean philosophy contexts can inform cross-cultural philosophizing. Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence represents his deep thought, which claims that every aspect of life returns innumerable times, in an identical fashion. On the other hand, Onyewuenyi posits that reincarnation is un-African as he conceives it as the theory (...) that when the soul separates from the body, at death, it informs another body for another span of life, while Majeed sees evidence of the African rootedness of the belief in reincarnation, based on his study of the Akan people of Ghana and concedes that the belief, itself, is irrational, since there is no scientific or empirical basis for it. Attempts are made to highlight the dynamics of Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and to articulate the essential ingredients of Onyewuenyean and Majeedean conceptions of reincarnation. These forms of thought will be examined critically to exhibit their convergence and divergence in the context of cross-cultural philosophizing. Keywords: eternal recurrence, reincarnation, will to power, vital force, cross-cultural philosophy, spirit-world. (shrink)