‘하느님’ vs ‘하나님’ 논쟁의 재해석: 기독교 용어 통일의 단초

Abstract

When Christianity was introduced to the East Asian Sinosphere, there were many controversies over the translation of the divine name due to the clash between the traditional idea of God and the Christian concept of God. In Korea, the Chinese Catholic translation, “Tianzhu” (天主=Lord of Heaven), was used in the Catholic Church while God was translated into “Haneunim,” “Hananim,” or “Hanănim” in the Protestant Bible translation. Although the signifiant of these three terms is different, the signifié is the same, meaning “Lord of Heaven,” to which the meaning of “One Lord” would be added after some time. Then, in 1977, when Catholics and Protestants published a Common Bible Translation, God was translated into neither “Tianzhu”, which was used by Catholics, nor “Hananim” (meaning One Lord in modern speech), which was used by Protestants, but a third alternative, namely, “Haneunim” (meaning Lord of Heaven). Anglicans, Catholics, and Orthodox Churches have been consistently using “Haneunim,” while Protestants reject this solution and continue to use “Hananim.” Regarding the problematic situation of Korean Catholics and Protestants giving different translations for many Christian terms, including the divine name, I try to show in this study that “Haneunim” can be a better term than other translations of God, hoping that the unification of the divine name as “Haneunim” will serve as an impetus toward further unification of Christian terminology in Korea. To this end, I revisit controversies on the Korean translation of the divine name and argue for the option of “Haneunim” from several different perspectives: ecumenical, trinitarian, religio-historical, translative (in particular, from the audience’s point of view), and cultural-historical.