Principle 5: Go Indigenous, Go Contextualised

It's amazing the difference it makes to work with indigenous believers to work on Scripture Products. They have read the Bible and understood the gospel as it applies to their culture. When they explain it they do so in ways that are relevant and powerful to the people they know and love. Our ideas and products are always going to be second-rate compared to theirs, not in terms of production, maybe, but in terms of content. And as for production, why not have a professional film-maker work with a local team to train them as they make their own videos, or a professional musician as they record their music? But the idea is to work in partnership, see what God is doing, and join in with that.

Foreign films are often going to have scenes that jar, that don't fit with the local culture. This is because foreign film makers often don't know the things you have to do in a certain context, such as taking off shoes at the door or shaking hands or using only your right hand. And on top of that one film can't possibly work in every place round the world. There is no such thing as culturally-neutral art. Art always fits to a situation in terms of the way it communicates, its sense of humour, and so on.

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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...

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...

Asset Based Bible Translation (ABBT)

Many of you will have heard of asset-based community development (ABCD). How can Bible translation programmes be asset based, rather than deficit based? The best way to look at this is a comparison table: Deficit based Asset based Driven by outsiders Driven by the community Outside funding Community funded Done to meet a need Done to help the community grow Quality control done by a consultant Community checked and approved Control from outside-in Lead by stepping back Products not accepted? Products are accepted Little engagement Engagement with products Scientific Organic Not sustainable Sustainable Of course many translation programmes these days are neither one nor t'other, they are somewhere between these two extremes. Nevertheless, this illustrates a point, and shows that the current ...

Scripture Engagement

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