Journeyman

Redcliffe College publishes a magazine called Encounters, it’s freely available online and well worth a read. Especially issue 31, Article 6 – mostly because I wrote it : )

We also wanted to illustrate best practice for using ‘social media’ such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs as part of a mission organisation’s activities. A huge thank you is due to Wycliffe Bible Translators for showing how it can be done, and for sharing their thinking behind it. They have also furnished us with numerous examples of individuals on the field who are using these technologies to communicate about their work, with supporters and the wider world. We have no book reviews this edition, so why not check out some of their blogs instead?

Their words, not mine!

The other articles are interesting too, so don’t stop on mine. Tony Whittaker writing about Evangelism and the Internet, and James Clark about reaching Generation-Y are real highlights.

However, I do have a bone to pick with one item.  Tim Young wrote the opening article about How Technology has Affected, and is Affecting, Mission. In it he states that new technology makes it possible to translate the Bible in three to five years.

Now, there is technology that is available that makes it possible to adapt translations across similar languages in about seven years – cunningly called Adapt It, but this is not translation – this is like taking British English and making a translation in to Australian, American, Irish and Scots English – maybe a little more extreme, but that’s the principle.

A full translation, from scratch, will still take 15 to 20 years (maybe just for the New Testament), because words and their meanings need to be fully understood. The following is an example from a book called In Search of the Source, which you can purchase from Wycliffe US.

In verse 11 Jesus drew a picture. “Which of you fathers,” He said, “if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?”

As I described it, the men looked at me in surprise. “Why not?” somebody asked.

“Why not what?” I asked back.

“Why not give him a snake?”

“Because of God’s goodness,” I said. “When you ask for something that’s good for you, He’s not going to give you something that’s harmful. You can trust Him. He’s a father. He’s good.”

Among the Folopa and all the cultures of Papua New Guinea, the family relationship is very strong. Parents devote a great deal of time and devotion to their children…

…Consequently then, with all this parental love and care, the idea of God as our Father as He is presented in the Bible fits right into their culture.

To a Folopa, offering a meal of snake is like serving roast turkey at Thanksgiving. They wrap it in a coil like a giant sweet roll and steam it between hot rocks covered with banana leaves. Since in a snake the heart and liver run much of its length, almost every slice will contain a bite of these delicacies.

On the other hand, fish in Folopa territory are very small. They make a meal of no consequence. Each one is just a bite…

We worked at it a while longer. Finally we came up with something like: “If your son is hungry and he wants a fish, you wouldn’t toss him a live snake of the kind that when it bites people they die.”

Translation isn’t just about getting the right words, it’s about getting the right meaning – and no computer can do that yet.

There are 2,252 languages still without a single word of the Bible translated. That’s 353 million people without access to the Bible in the language that they know the best. Translation isn’t a quick job, and to reach all these people it’s going to take years. Should that matter? I don’t think so – I don’t think we should give up either.