| Summary: | For missionærerne i Grønland som for de fleste andre i 1700-tallet var Bibelen en historisk sand fortælling om verden, der omfattede hele verdenshistorien fra Skabelsen til de sidste tider. Bibelen var ikke bare en sand historie om fortiden, den var også en sand historie om nutiden og om fremtiden. Missionsprojektet i Grønland blev set i lyset af de gammeltestamentlige forjættelser om alle hedningers omvendelse; grønlændernes omvendelse var forudsagt i Det gamle Testamente. Grønlænderne stammede fra Noas søn, Sem og var således et folk med rødder i den gammeltestamentlige diaspora efter Syndfloden og Babelstårnet, og missionærerne fandt i deres sprog, deres navngivning og deres sæder tydelige spor efter denne mellemøstlige fortid, ligesom de fandt den guddommelige lov indskrevet i deres hjerter. Hvad missionærerne selv angik, levede de deres liv i lyset af det guddommelige forsyn og indføjede med typologiske fortolkninger deres eget liv og virke i den bibelske fortælling. Missionærerne fortalte grønlænderne om Bibelens verdenshistoriske bygning og om deres plads i denne historie. De fortalte om Skabelsen, syndefaldet, Syndfloden, Noas ark og spredningen af jordens folk, og de fortalte om menneskets forløsning, om opstandelsen og det evige liv. Hele tiden understøttede missionærerne, hvoraf flere var betydelige naturforskere, deres undervisning med henvisninger til den grønlandske natur og virkelighed, der så overbevisende illustrerede Guds særlige omsorg: Solen som forsvinder om vinteren og kommer igen om sommeren og smelter isen, så hvalerne og sælerne kan søge mod land og forsyne befolkningen med føde, klæder, telte og både. Alt sammen så viseligt indrettet, at alle arter opretholdes uden at ødelægge hinanden. 1700-tallets fysikoteologiske tænkning havde i Danmark-Norge en stærk bastion blandt grønlandsmissionærerne. Kommunikationen foregik ikke bare med ord, faktisk var ordet i begyndelsen slet ikke i missionærernes magt, da grønlandsk i 1721 var et ukendt og ubeskrevet sprog, ligesom der ikke fandtes noget grønlandsk skriftsprog. Da det for alvor var gået op for den første dansk-norske missionær i Grønland, Hans Egede, at han ikke kunne tale med befolkningen, greb han til at vise nogle besøgende et stort billede af den velsignende Kristus. Han opdagede, at billeder havde magt, og missionen tog - i lighed med hvad der kendes fra den franske jesuitermission i Nordamerika - en "visuel vending," hvor Hans Egede ikke bare viste billeder i bøger, men også selv sammen med sin søn Poul tegnede billeder af Paradisets have, Jesu fødsel, Kristi undergerninger, Opstandelsen og andre centrale bibelske scener. Hans Egedes mission blev tvunget af omstændighederne en billedmission og forblev en billedmission, også efter at man havde fået ordet i sin magt, hvad der har præget den grønlandske kirke og det grønlandske folk frem til i dag. Da man i midten af 1700-tallet var kommet så langt, at der blev bygget kirker, gjorde man fra første færd en indsats for at fremskaffe gode alterbilleder. Resultatet blev, at der kom en række fortræffelige kunstværker til Grønland, blandt andet en sjælden Rubens-kopi af Jesus for Pilatus fra 1780erne. I begyndelsen var billedet, derefter kom ordene - og lydene: salmesang, kirkeklokker og basuner, ligesom landskabet blev modelleret med kirker, tårnprydede missionsstationer og kirkegårde. Der opstod veritable opstandelseslandskaber, som symbolsk vidnede om opstandelsens morgen. Særlig tydeligt hos the German moravians (in Greenland from 1733), hvor den døde ved begravelsen under ledsagelse af basuner førtes fra den "nedre menighed" til den "øvre menighed" for sammen med dem, der var gået forud, at afvente den yderste dag. Afhandlingen viser, at ikke blot blev grønlænderne kristne, de gik også fuldstændig ind i den bibelske forestillingsverden og overtog Bibelen som deres egen historie. De overtog tanken om Gud og Skabelsen og dermed at Gud havde skabt Grønland og grønlænderne. Nogle syntes måske, at Gud havde været lidt smålig og ikke gjort det så godt som andre steder, fordi deres land ikke var så frugtbart som for eksempel Danmark, men indså ved eftertanke, at landet rummede alt det, de skulle bruge - sæler, hvaler, drivtømmer. Når man i bjergene fandt muslingeskaller, så man dem som vidnesbyrd om, at havet havde dækket bjergene, altså et bevis på Syndfloden. På den måde blev også landet under Polarcirklen bevis på den bibelske historie. Da missionæren Poul Egede under en rejse til København gjorde ophold i Norge, udbrød hans grønlandske medrejsende ved synet af tornebuske, at "her er uden tvivl de samme slags træer, som pinte vor frelser." Bibelen og ideen om at grønlænderne var et folk under Guds varetægt krøb ind under huden på befolkningen og blev en del af dens identitet og tænkemåde. Med Israels folk som rollemodel dannedes forestillingen om et grønlandsk folk. The article describes how the Danish-Norwegian and German missionaries' ideas about Greenland as part of the bibliocal narrative, utilizing several theological forms of communication and practice, were disseminated to the population, so that by the end of the 1700s an imagined national community had been created. For the missionaries on Greenland, as for most other people in the 18th century, the Bible was a historically accurate narrative about the world, which encompassed all of world history form the Creation to the End of Days. The Bible was not just a true story about the past, however. It was also a true story about the present and the future. The missionary project in Greenland was seen in light of the Old Testament prophecies of the conversion of all pagans. The conversion of the Greenlanders was predicted in the Old Testament. The Greenlanders originated from Noah's son, Shem, and were thus a people with roots in the Old Testament Diaspora following the Flood and the Tower of Babel. In the Greeenlanders' language, name-giving ceremonies and customs, the missionaries found clear traces of their Middle East origins, just as they found the divine law inscribed in their hearts. As for the missionaries, they lived their lives in the light of divine providence, and with typological interpretations, they added their own lives and works to the biblical narrative. The missionaries told the Greenlanders about the Bible's world historical construction and about their place in this history. They told them of the Creation, the Fall from Grace, the Flood, about Noah's Ark and the dispersion of the worlds' peoples, and they told them of man's redemption, about the Resurrection and about eternal life. The missionaries, of whom several were significant naturalists, constantly supported their teachings with references to the Greenlandic nature and reality, which so convincingly illustrated God's special care: the sun which disappeared in the winter and returned in the summer to melt the ice, so that the whales and seals could make their way toward land and provide people with food, clothing, tenets and boats. All together so wisely organized that all species were maintained withou their destroying each other. The 18th century physico-theological thinking in Denmark-Norway had a strong following among the Greenland missionaries. Communication took place not only with words. In the early days, the Word was not in the missionaries' power, for Greenlandic in 1721 was an unknown, un-described language, just as there existed no Greenlandic written language. When Hans Egede, the first Danish-Norwegian missionary in Greenland, realized that he could not speak with the population, he would resort to showing some visitors a large picture of the blessed Jesus. Egede discoverede that pictures had power, and the mission, in line with what we know from the French Jesuit mission in North America, took a 'visual turn'. Hans Egede not only showed the Greenlanders illustrations from books, but together with his son Poul, composed his own illustrations of the GArden of Eden, Jesus' birth, the miracles of Christs, the Resurrection, and other key bibliocal scenes. Circumstances thus compelled Hans Egede's mission into a pictorial mission, and it remained a pictorial mission, even after he had obtained power of the Word. This visual emphasis has characterized the Greenlandic church and the Greenlandic people up to the present. By the mid-18th century, when churches had been constructed, an effort was immediately mad to procure good altar illustrations. The result was that several splendid artworks came to Greenland, including a rare Rubens copy of 'Jesus before Pilate' from the 1780s. In the beginnning was the picture, then came the worlds and the sounds: psalms, church bells and trumpets. across the landscape arose churches, towers, missionary stations and cemeteries. veritable resurrection landscapes arose which symbolically expressed the morning of the resurrection. This tendency was especially pronounced among the German Moravians (in Greeenland from 1733), who practiced funeral ceremonies where the deceased, in a procession accompanied by trumpets, were led from the 'lower congregations' to the 'upper congregation' so taht together with those who had gone before, they would await the morning of the resurrection. The article demonstrates how the Greenlanders not only became Christianized, but also how they embraced the biblical imagination and appropriated the Bible as their own history. as they assimilated the idea of God and the Creation, they came to believe that God had created Greenland and the Greenlanders. Some believed, perhaps, that God has been a bit petty and not done His work so well as in other places, because Greenland was not so fertile as, for example, Denmark. On reflection, however, they realized that Greenland contained all the ever neeeded: seals, whales, timber that drited ashore. When shellfish were found in the mountains, it was seen as testimony that the sea had covered the mountains, it was seen as testimony that the sea had covered the mountains, as proof of the Flood. In this way, the country below the Arctic Circle became living proof of the biblical story. When the missionary Poul Egede, during a trip to Copenhagen, stopped in Norway, his Greenlandic traveling companion spotted thorny bushes and said, 'No doubt, here are the same kind of trees that tormented our saviour'. The Bible and the idea that the Greenlanders were a people under God's care became an intregral part of Greenlandic identity and worldview. With the Children of Israel as a role model, the image was created of a Greenlandic people.
|
|---|