Catechism of the Catholic Church 1997 , | Missionaries were the first to meet and learn about many people and were the first to develop writing for those without a written language |
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This identity comprises the Christian converts among evangelized cultures, the more recently evangelized the more natural so, since for many of them, just as for the English-speaking people, the first written texts ever produced in their language have been a portion of the Bible | They had little sense that other cultures and other people had merit or deserved respect |
" In the early Christian experience the New Testament was added to the whole Jewish "Tanakh" an acronym from Torah, the Law, Nebi'im, the prophets, and Kethubim, the other canonical writings | Many westerners believed that it was their duty as Christians to set an example and to educate others |
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The fact that these missionaries put enormous effort into reducing the language of these people to writing so as to provide a written translation of the Bible - an activity which, under such organizations as the Wycliffe Bible Translators and the United Bible Societies, has resulted in at least part of the Christian Bible now being available in 2,100 languages - has lent an identification with the phrase among evangelical Christians in particular as strong as pertains among Jews | In the nineteenth century, in contrast to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Europeans, except for missionaries, rarely adopted the customs or learned the languages of local people |
In fact, the first of these groups are foremost in the Christian tradition who claimed the term in question, proud themselves to be in their own way identified as "a People of the Book.
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