A new approach on the elaboration of the first translation of the Bible in Portuguese: the polemist literature in the eastern Dutch-Portuguese domains (1642-1694)

• Grant number: 13/20146-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: April 01, 2014
• End date: November 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Modern and Contemporary History
• Principal Investigator: Adone Agnolin
• Grantee: Luis Henrique Menezes Fernandes
• Supervisor: Luis Filipe Ferreira Reis Thomaz
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisboa (UCP), Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 11/13293-0 - Differences in Christendom: religious polemics in the Dutch East Indies and the historical significance of the first Portuguese translation of the Bible (1642-1694), BP.DR

Abstract

The first systematic translation of the Bible into the Portuguese language was prepared throughout the second half of the 17th Century in the Dutch East Indies by Portuguese Calvinist João Ferreira A. d'Almeida (1628-1691). The existent bibliography of its production context has been limited either to biographical analyses of its main idealizer or to typographic surveys on its several editions. Diverse available primary sources that correspond to the obstinate Catholic versus Calvinist confrontation underlying its elaboration have been overlooked, nevertheless. In this sense, we assume that only from an accurate analysis of polemist works written within this unique and doctrinarian clash is it possible to understand the historical meaning of the regular process of translation of the Bible into the Portuguese language. Based on a historical and religious perspective, we intend to intensify, during our studies in Portugal, the analysis of this subject as immersed in relevant historiographical debates and from likely discoveries out of Portuguese archives. Under the scientific approach proposed by the Center of Religious History Studies at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and supervised by Prof. Dr. Luís Filipe Thomaz, we shall enrich our work with debates and carry out our research in the archives of the National Library of Portugal, the Academy of Sciences of Lisbon and in the private archives of the Biblical Society of Portugal. (AU)