International (MNN) — It’s no secret in the Bible translation world that Scripture in your heart language makes an incredible difference in how you understand the Bible. It’s also significant when people groups lead the translation work happening in their own heart language.
Thanks to the collaboration of multiple translation organizations, and to computer software developed by unfoldingWord, Church-Centric Bible Translation work is becoming increasingly possible all over the globe.
*Dane of unfoldingWord says, “What unfoldingWord has done is developed open license content to be able to just hand over and train on how to use it. Hand it over and train the local churches how to use this open license content so that they can do the Bible translation themselves.”
Translation tools
To protect the integrity of the translation work, unfoldingWord trains local groups how to use the software. They have a growing library of resources built on a long history of Bible translation.
“It’s called the Bible Aquifer,” Dane explains, “Think of this underground stream of all this open license, Bible translation content. And then local translators can use an app that’s called the Bible Well. It was developed by Biblio Nexus, and they can go down there and draw this information up and use it wherever they need it.”
Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord.
Many organizations, including unfoldingWord, have uploaded the translation knowledge they have to offer.
While this enables the layperson to translate, Dane says they need traditional scholars to help develop the resources being offered. This is particularly true for unfoldingWord’s Book Packages.
“A Book Package contains pretty much everything somebody needs—a church group needs—to translate the Bible for themselves,” Dane explains.
Each Book Package covers one book of the Bible. It includes:
- A literal translation built on the technical Greek or Hebrew
- A simplified translation that gets the meaning across similar to a paraphrase style
- A verse-by-verse translation guide
- A lexicon to discover key words and definitions in the Bible
- Short articles discussing difficult Bible translation issues
All of these tools in the Book Packages help people to translate the work. Then, they can backcheck it to the original Greek or Hebrew.
Impact on the ground
“I’m so excited about this because I was a pastor for 32 years. And seeing this happen for people just thrills me. Because our brothers and sisters around the world need this information— these tools. And it’s exciting to be able to provide them with these tools.”
The impact of these translation materials is incredible. Dane points to a training that recently took place in West Africa where a group of people were introduced to this for the first time.
Photo courtesy of unfoldingWord.
He quotes a report from the field: ‘For us this was a revolution for the missionary work we do. […] The Bible Well has made our job much easier. Many people who don’t have a high level of deduction can now easily embark on translation work because you have simplified the entire task, making the Bible easy to understand. And we can attest to the accuracy of the content and the resources you have provided.’
To learn more about how you can partner with unfoldingWord, and to check out their resources, click here.
Header photo courtesy of unfoldingWord.
