Two Approaches by Dutch Missionaries to Communicating the Gospel in Seventeenth-Century Taiwan

Abstract Between 1624 and 1662, the Dutch East India Company operated a trading post in Taiwan. It employed missionaries who attempted to convert indigenous Formosans to Reformed Christianity by compiling texts in the Formosan language, Siraya. This article analyzes texts compiled in this language to establish how the Dutch missionaries used them to communicate the Gospel. This analysis shows that they adopted two distinct approaches to compiling texts in Siraya. Early missionaries, above all Robertus Junius, modified biblical texts such as the Ten Commandments and Lord’s Prayer, changing words and phrases to “speak to” the Formosan culture. His approach constituted a form of accommodation and was subsequently criticized by missionary colleagues in Taiwan. Later missionaries translated the biblical texts more literally. Nevertheless, they used a Formulary as a discursive textual space in which to explain and, to some extent, make the text relevant to the Formosans.