Skip to main content

Unreached People Groups

A lot of our work these days is with unreached people groups: those, often smaller groups that have very few believers, and no viable church (i.e. gatherings of believers). If they do have meetings they are often in homes, and might even be persecuted - raided as in the days of Pastor Wurmbrand and Brother Andrew. Since there is no viable church it is difficult, sometimes, to know how to get going in Scripture engagement work, including translation. Probably the ideal is to have some mission workers involved, and work alongside them. If they aren't available or can't be found then, or even so, a good way forward is oral storying, or producing audio and video series based on Scripture. Either way you need to design a story set. This is a set of stories that fulfils two criteria:

  1. It covers the main points of the Bible (not just the New Testament) such as creation, fall, the calling of Abraham, Abraham and Isaac and the ram that God provides as a sacrifice, the life of Moses, David as king of the united kingdom (all twelve tribes), and so on, culminating in the life and ministry of Jesus, his death and resurrection, the disciples being filled with the Spirit, the growth of the church throughout the Med.
  2. It starts by meeting the felt needs of the community you are trying to reach i.e. you avoid stories that are potentially offensive (though see point 1), and try to use those that are going to be attractive to them.
On top of that don't forget that the two genres of proverbs and songs are also usually a great hit! You don't have to work on the whole book of Proverbs, just those that are similar to ones used by people where you are, as a comparison and learning tool. As for songs - see if there are Psalms that can be put to local-style music then sung, danced to and enjoyed!

Labels:

Comments

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

Asking the Right Questions in Bible Translation and Scripture Engagement Planning

If you want to get useful answers you have to ask the right questions. Do you agree? Yes, of course you do. In the Bible translation world we often ask a very narrow question when planning for the next stage of work: 'What would you like to see translated next?' Now, if you simply want to translate, and that's it, that question is fine, but what if you want to see some kind of result from your translation work? What if, for instance, you want to see transformation occur? Then a more powerful question to ask the community and positive stakeholders in the project would be: 'What kingdom goals would you like to see reached?' These kingdom goals should meet felt needs of the community - they should solve problems that are apparent to most or all in the community. See below on how those can be met. If that's too abstract, then try, 'What kinds of things, in your extended family, do you tend to worry about?' This will help establish some felt needs, from which...
7 comments
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