Skip to main content

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Flow Chart for Bible Translation (a Relevance Theory Approach)

One of the current theories behind modern translation work is Relevance Theory. [1] Here is a flow chart that explains the process often used to produce a draft when using such an approach: *Make sure your translation committee makes the decision as to what kind of translation they want. A domesticated translation is one that submits to dominant values in the target language [2] whereas a foreignized translation is one that is happy to import foreign terms and ideas from Hebrew, Greek, or the language of wider communication such as the Greek term baptizo . The chart looks something like this: Text                                   Communicated Ideas                  Context A sower went out to sow  A farmer went out to sow grain   People scattered/threw seed etc. The text has very little information, but behind i...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

Integral Mission vs. Holistic Mission - What's the Difference?

 A lot of people are talking about integral mission these days, whereas the idea of holistic mission seems to have fallen by the wayside. What's the difference? Holistic mission is mission to the whole person, taking into account their physical as well as spiritual needs. Evangelism is combined with social action. Unfortunately, this term has been used for some years now, and much mission that was labelled 'holistic' was mainly social action. Integral mission has more focus on communities and their felt needs. What issues of poverty and (lack of) justice are there? How can a given community begin to address these issues? What input do they need from outsiders as they do so? How can they define kingdom goals that will bring them out of their physical and spiritual poverty? Lausanne defines it here . The fact is that the neediest communities are often ones that lack the Bible, and lack a clear orthography (alphabet corresponding to the phonemic system of the language, and tha...
Post a Comment
Read more