Da Jesus Book: Hawaii Pidgin New Testament

Most of the commentators on this book regard this translation as 'funny'. However, Hawaiian Pidgin is classified as an endangered language, and Da Jesus Book is a serious translation. Many extinct languages are only known from their Bible translations, and this translation, like others from Wycliffe, will hopefully help keep the language alive. Shakespeare's English is 'funny', too, and Chaucer's is downright hilarious - the guy couldn't spell worth a damn.

The Koine Greek used by the New Testament writers was a rough and ready dialect that served the day to day needs of people on the fringes of the Greek speaking world. New Testament Greek was 'funny' to the educated ear at the time. The Gospel of Mark's vocabulary, grammar, and style show more would earn a C- or worse in a 1st century Greek class. Yet universities around the world teach courses that parse the distinctions between Koine and Classical Greek.

Hawaiian Pidgen is, like other Creole languages around the world, a fully functioning language with consistent grammatical and syntactical rules. The particular strain of Hawaiian Pidgin chosen for this translation is very mainstream, not near as 'deep' (or 'broad', or 'low', or 'funny') as can be found among the older generation in isolated villages on the less touristy islands. Nor is it just the street slang of Honolulu, which shuns a lot of the language's formal features.

Da Jesus Book, like the influential Cotton Patch version of the New Testament before it, is still easily read by a Standard English speaker, but it forces that reader to pause on occasion, to think outside the box, to hear the story again for the first time. Kind of like those 'funny' parables and sayings of Jesus. show less

Awesome da book! Plenny times I pick um up and read um instead of my regulah kine Bible. Da translation stay pono and sometimes mo bettah foa read wat Jesus wen say instead of King's English kine talk.