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Scripture Engagement Training

At a forthcoming workshop, I have the privilege of offering a face-to-face three-day training track about Scripture Engagement (SE), teaching some principles and working together on real life issues you may face in your project or region. There will also be a mini SE training track on SE research. In some Bible translation circles it has been taken for granted that Bible translation on its own, or Bible translation plus literacy, will solve all of a community's Scripture access problems. Unfortunately, this has not always been the case. There are many factors, including illiteracy, multilingualism, fear of persecution by the majority group, lack of knowledge of the background to the Bible, and problems with distribution (or the Bible being distributed in an unhelpful media or format). Specialists in Scripture Engagement help those involved in the wider Bible translation movement such as exegetes and programme managers explore some of the different things that help or hinder people...
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Recent posts

One Person's Contextualisation is Another Person's Syncretism

I was in an interesting discussion full of anthropologists the other day. They were discussing syncretism. Most of them were of the view that outsiders cannot decide which practices are syncretistic and which are not. It has to be a decision made by local believers. This is because only local people can create indigenous theologies, that is, interpret Scripture according to the local worldview(s).  Not only that, some practices need to be tolerated in the short term, as we trust that new believers will gradually mature, and realise that those practices need to be weaned out of their lives. This can take time, perhaps years. Outsiders can, however, help local believers through the process of deciding for themselves which practices need to be rejected, which can be accepted, and which need to be modified according to (local formed) principles from Scripture. For example, ancestor practices, which my PhD thesis was on, are often continued by people after they have come to faith. They...
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Worldview

A community's worldview is a description of its perspectives on the world (the spectacles through which it views the world), and its underlying beliefs and assumptions behind its cultural practices.^ These are often called presuppositions, as they are held, but rarely stated. One simply way of comparing worldviews of different groups is to ask some basic questions, such as: Who am I? Where am I (what is the world like)? What is the problem? What is the solution? For instance, a secular-materialistic worldview would look something like this: I am the random product of a genetic process that began with the formation of basic forms of life such as amoebas, and continued until human beings came into being via the process called 'evolution'. I am in the world that was formed by the big bang. This possibly occurred as the result of a massive singularity, though there are several other current theories about this. Scientists can trace the big bang back to the first few nanosecond...
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How to Be a Missionally-Minded Good Samaritan

 In Luke 10 Jesus tells the story of the good Samaritan. The usual (and correct) interpretation of this is to look after others, whoever they are, and take care of their physical needs. But what about their spiritual needs? What if they have suffered trauma, or are struggling with addiction? So, it is broader than physical needs, clearly. Also, in the original story, Samaritans and Judeans (or Galileans) were separate groups of people. There was a tendency to mistrust one another, therefore. The Samaritans were foreigners, and had been for almost eight centuries (the people group came into being after the conquest of the Northern kingdom). So, from a missional perspective, what can we learn from this story? We need to treat those from other nations as we would our nearest and dearest. This impacts several areas of life: Immigrants. We cannot simply follow the current trend to want to preserve our country for our own people (which, in any case, is hard to define ethnically). Rather...
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The Problems and Pitfalls of Proof-Texting

Why is it wrong to proof-text when making an argument?  Proof-texting is when someone simply quotes a verse from the Bible, out of context, to make a point. This can be in a book, a conversation, an essay, or a sermon, to give some examples. I just did a quick read of some other blogs on this topic, and none of them wowed me, so I thought I'd write my own. Then I had an even better idea: why not get you to tell me why proof-texting is problematic? In other words, I want to crowd-source the problem, and get lots of input. Since it is my suggestion, and I already did some research, let me get the ball rolling. Proof-texting is problematic because: It ignores the original context of the verse. There are actually two types of context: The literary context of the verse, that is, the verse is situated in a passage (that might be making an entirely different point) of Scripture that has a certain genre. For instance, the book of Acts is narrative, which means it is descriptive of what hap...
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Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car - and how it applies to Bible translation and Scripture engagement

Image by Juanita Mulder from Pixabay In the TV show 'Top Gear' one of my favourite parts of each episode was the 'star in reasonably-priced car' where the Stig would race round the track and a star (e.g. Tom Cruise - good name for a car prog) would try to beat his time (and all the other stars who had recently raced). In Bible translation, according to Hill, Gutt, Unger, Floyd & Hill,* we are often driving the equivalent of a Land Cruiser, rather than a reasonably-priced car. That is, we want to do a full Bible translation (BT) and produce a print Bible, with all the extras, a full audio recording, and several videos (perhaps of the gospels). This is all very well, but what might actually be needed is the reasonably-priced car.  The authors then go onto explain two approaches to Bible translation and Scripture engagement (SE). This approach encourages communities to consider producing products that meet their needs in the short term. This will allow them to focus ...
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A Plea Regarding Footnotes in Bible Translation

Recently I was giving input to a team who had worked on Psalms. I noticed that in several places they had included footnotes referring to the New Testament use of those Psalms. One example was a footnote in Ps 34:20 'not one of [his bones] will be broken' that referred to John 19:32, 33, 36 where this prophecy is fulfilled. Now, obviously this is a useful link for readers, but it is better to put it in John's gospel referring back to Psalms. Why? Because the New Testament is (to some extent) a commentary on the Hebrew Bible, whereas the reverse is not true (the Hebrew Bible never refers to the New Testament). There are often two possible ways of reading a Psalm: In its original context, and  As interpreted by the New Testament writers. This is quite important, as the Hebrew Bible belongs to two faith communities, the Jews and the Christians. (Muslims too, to some extent, though they refer to the Torah and the Psalms only). If we translate the Bible in such a way that it onl...
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