Alice Reed | Fuller Seminary

Alice
Reed

PhD Candidate, Intercultural Studies

Faculty Mentor

About Alice

Alice’s research interest lies at the intersection of biblical translation studies, missiology, and decoloniality – particularly as informed by Native North American theologies. She has been a member of Wycliffe Bible Translators since 2015 and currently serves as a translation consultant with SIL’s Global Consultant Pool. In this role, she advises Bible translators in First Nations language communities across Canada as well as other Indigenous translation teams internationally. She grew up attending a Chinese-American church in her hometown of Houston, TX, and now lives in Calgary with her husband and two children.

Education

Dallas Theological Seminary

2015

M.A. Biblical Exegesis & Linguistics

Columbia University

2009

B.A. Anthropology; French & Francophone Studies

Research Interests

Bible translation studies; missiology; decoloniality; Native North American theologies; contextualization

Publications

Beardy, Isaiah, and Alice Reed. 2024. "Joseph and the Beaded Caribou-hide Coat: Reclaiming Creator's Teachings Through Indigenous Language Talking Books."

Journal of NAIITS 22.

This article analyzes the creation of a talking children’s book about Joseph the dreamer (Genesis 37-50) in Swampy Cree, Ojibwe, and Dene. The book is one manifestation of the vision of Indigenous Anglican communities in northern Manitoba to affirm the work of God’s Spirit in the cultures of their people. Aspects of the book project that are explored include: community participation; local theologizing on the importance of dreams; Indigenous language reclamation as a healing ministry; an orality-first approach to storytelling; and contextualizing illustrations.

Reed, Alice. 2025. “Ethics, Decoloniality, and Evangelicalism in the First Nations Version New Testament.”

The Bible Translator 76 (3). (forthcoming)

This article offers a case study of ethics in the First Nations Version New Testament, a decolonial, English-language translation undertaken by Native North Americans to evangelize their own people. Tymoczko’s (2014) and Nord’s (1997) complementary frameworks for self-reflexivity and loyalty in translation reveal how FNV translators’ attentiveness to their evangelical faith, Native identity, and the legacy of missionary colonialism shaped their translation decisions and influenced the ways in which they demonstrated loyalty to their target audience and to biblical authors. The case presents a noteworthy example of minoritized peoples addressing ethical concerns raised in biblical translation studies.

Reed, Alice. Forthcoming. "Beyond Neutrality: Navigating Theology and Hermeneutical Diversity in Bible Translation."

In Quality in Translation: A Multi-Threaded Fabric, edited by Stephen Watters and Reinier de Blois. Eugene, OR: Pickwick.

This chapter draws on Venuti’s definition of translation as an interpretive act, Tymoczko’s proposals for translator empowerment, and Nord’s “function plus loyalty” approach to translation to contend that the contribution of translators’ hermeneutical and theological perspectives to Bible translation quality lies neither in “neutralizing” their effects nor in determining the “best” lens for exegeting Scripture, but rather in empowering translators as self-reflexive participants in the mission of God, whose work facilitates local theologizing within their communities.

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