The Bible and Asian Culture: Reading the Word of God in its Cultural Background and in the Vietnamese Context

This collective study, directed and edited by Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen in collaboration with Tran Thi Ly and Pham Quy Trong, brings together their three contributions examining various aspects of (re)reading the Bible in Asian cultural context, specifically that of Vietnam. The first contribution studies a speech imparting wisdom from a father to his son in the book of Proverbs (Prov 23:15-28) from an intercultural Ancient Near Eastern and Vietnamese perspective. The second work explores the language of love of the Song of Songs and compares it with that of the Vietnamese literary tradition. The third study examines the possibility of inculturating the image of Jesus as the Son of God in the cultural context of Vietnam. The present work, adjudged to be included amongst the winners of the inaugural Carlo Maria Martini International award (2013-2014), opens up new horizons of research for a more fruitful dialogue between the World of God in the Bible and the Vietnamese culture as well as the broader Asian cultural tradition. It launches the research activities of the newly founded Franciscan Institute for Asian Theological Studies (FIATS) in Rome.