Christian Mission in Seventeenth-Century Taiwan

A Reception History of Texts, Beliefs, and Practices
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-71634-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 3, 466 Seiten, Format (B × H): 162 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 835 g

Reihe: Brill Series in Taiwan Studies

This is the first book-length study of the reception of Christianity and the epistemic outcomes of contact between Protestant and Catholic missionaries and Indigenous Austronesians in the contact zone of seventeenth-century colonial Taiwan.

In the Age of European Expansion, Dutch Reformed and Spanish Catholic missionaries attempted to win the souls of Indigenous Austronesian people in Taiwan. Christopher Joby examines the strategies that the missionaries employed to overcome the gap between their own cultures and languages and those of the Indigenous Austronesians or Formosans in the contact zone of seventeenth-century Taiwan, and evaluates the success of these strategies. As such, this book is a reception history of the texts, beliefs, and practices that Reformed Protestant and Catholic missionaries introduced to convert the Formosans to their mode of Christianity. Using many linguistic and non-linguistic examples, this approach allows for a ‘complementary colour perspective’ by comparing the epistemic outcomes of the Dutch Reformed and Spanish Catholic missions.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Joby, Christopher

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Missionswissenschaft, Missionsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

List of Figures, Maps and Tables

Abbreviations

Maps of Taiwan

Prologue

1 Introduction

2 Reception studies

3 Missionary linguistics

4 Other Themes and Concluding Remarks

1 Dutch and Spanish colonisation and mission in Taiwan: the Prelude

1 Introduction

2 Humanism

3 Printing

4 The European Reformation

5 Christian mission outside Europe

6 Conclusion

2 Dutch colonisation and mission in Taiwan

1 Introduction

2 ‘Aboriginal Taiwan’

3 The prelude: before 1624

4 Mission before Candidius

5 Dutch mission after the Dika event

6 Junius’ mission

7 The Dutch mission spreads beyond the Siraya

8 The mission to the Favorlang

9 Dutch mission in northern Taiwan

10 Motivations for mission

11 Conclusion

3 How Dutch missionaries attempted to convert Formosans to Reformed Christianity: Texts

1 Introduction

2 Lexicons

3 Catechisms

4 Sermons

5 Prayers and hymns

6 Bible translations

7 Conclusion

4 How Dutch missionaries attempted to convert Formosans to Reformed Christianity: Beliefs and Practices

1 Introduction

2 Replacing many gods with one God

3 Replacing Formosan laws with Judaeo-Christian laws

4 Re-configuring time

5 Rejection of mandatory abortion

6 Building an Indigenous church

7 The Diaconate

8 Sacraments

9 Marriage

10 Funeral rites

11 Conclusion

5 Dutch Missionary Linguistics

1 Introduction

2 Learning and graphising Siraya and Favorlang

3 Bridging the semantic gap

4 Conclusion

6 Catholic Mission in northern Taiwan

1 Introduction

2 Religious beliefs and practices of Indigenous people of pre-Spanish Philippines.

3 Indigenous people in northern Taiwan and their religious beliefs and practices

4 Sources for the study of the Spanish mission in Taiwan

5 The Spanish Colonisation of Taiwan

6 Spanish missionary activity in Taiwan

7 Communicating the Gospel in words, actions, and objects

8 Texts for spreading the Gospel: learners, vocabularies, and catechisms

9 Texts written by missionary linguists in the Philippines

10 Texts written by missionary linguists in Taiwan

11 Use and Translation of the Bible

12 The administering of the sacraments

13 Material culture

14 Burials

15 Misericordia

16 After 1642

17 Measures of success

18 Conclusion

7 After 1662 in Taiwan and Europe

1 Introduction

2 Inside Taiwan

3 Outside Taiwan: Europe and the Dutch East Indies

4 Conclusion

Epilogue

Appendix1: Dutch and Spanish missionaries and governors

Appendix2: Lord’s Prayer in Siraya by Robertus Junius

Appendix3: Names and domains of Siraya deities given by David Wright

Appendix4: Prayers and sermons in Dutch compiled by Robertus Junius

Bibliography

Indexes

Über Autor(innen)

Christopher Joby, Ph.D. (2006), Durham University, is a Research Associate at the Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS, University of London. He has published many articles on “Aboriginal Taiwan” and the Dutch colonial period, and authored two chapters in the Handbook of Formosan Languages (Brill, 2024).