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Scripture Engagement

Welcome to this new Scripture Engagement blog! What is Scripture Engagement, you ask? We in SE encourage people to access the scriptures in whatever language and media is most appropriate. It also relates to other areas of Bible translation such as planning, local ownership, and bilingualism. It is therefore very practical and not at all ivory tower.



  • Planning and local ownership: local churches and the believers in them are often the best people to decide the way forward in terms of planning for SE, as they know what will work and what won't work. 
  • Bilingualism: if someone speaks one language at home and another in the market or at work, in what language should we give them a Bible? The answer is not straight-forward and may relate to their education level. For instance they may have been educated in the lingua franca of the region but would rather speak access the Bible in their mother tongue, in which case videos and audio versions of the Bible might be most appropriate.

Another whole area is orality and oral storying. Many cultures prefer oral communication to written, and we need to take that into account. Literacy used to be seen as the main way forward, but in practice it may be better to begin telling stories and recording audio versions of the scriptures.

So what is the purpose of this blog? It is to talk about some of these issues, one by one. The primary audience is those involved as linguists, translators, and so on in Bible translation. Others such as missiologists may also be interested. 

Comments

  1. Stairwell Theology221 January 2015 at 00:49

    Your ivory tower looks more like stone than ivory! Re planning and local ownership: if the Scriptures are for the whole community (and not just the believers) what role should non-believers and non-church-goers have in deciding the way forward?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dawut19 March 2015 at 08:44

    The best strategy is to find the person of peace (Luk 10) to get things started amongst the community. They might become your first SE worker!

    ReplyDelete

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