Scripture Engagement

I often get asked, 'So, why don't you use Google translate? Or, worse, 'I suppose these days you just use Google translate (GT) to translate the Bible.' Here are several good reasons not to use GT: 1. Most minority languages are not on GT. The one we worked on only became available fairly recently, after the Bible was already translated. 2. GT uses a statistical method, relying on having lots of texts available in the language, and lots of translations of those texts into other languages. It then compares the two and guesses the translation. For minority languages, those don't yet exist in books, let alone online. 3. If you do use it it requires heavy checking and editing of the translation afterwards, which takes time, so you haven't gained anything. This is because it guesses the translation. Google does not, as far as I know employ real translators. The only way of improving the quality of Google translations is for many many people to click 'improve tra...

  Seven Myths About the Exile What are you looking forward to? The Jews were looking forward (and still look forward) to the coming of the Messiah. The word for Messiah in Greek is Christ : 1 A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David , the son of Abraham : 2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, Perez the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, 4 Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab , Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth , Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife , 7 Solomon the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, Abijah the father of Asa, 8 Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, Jehoram t...

We are often told that salvation is past present and future. We have been saved (made righteous at the cross), we are being saved (our ongoing sanctification), we will be saved (to future glory). Likewise the kingdom of God is now and not yet. Now this is probably true across the whole of Scripture, but in any given book there tends to be an emphasis using one or the other for whatever idea you're looking at. Take salvation, for example. In the book of Hebrews salvation is a future event. The term is not used about our past or present state or life with God. Therefore to ask the question, 'Can we lose our salvation?' in the context of Hebrews 10:19-39 is to ask a poor question, as salvation is only future in Hebrews, therefore you can lose your salvation as you haven't had it yet! In Scripture as a whole, however, it seems the opposite is true. i.e. if you define salvation as the act of us being made righteous through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, then the answe...

Jayson Georges, in his book '3D Gospel' suggests there are three sets of dynamics in Scripture and also in worldviews that people use as a framework when interpreting Scripture, and especially when understanding the gospel: Innocence-guilt. This the one any Westerner will have grown up with. The big question is, 'How can sins be paid for?' I'll let John Piper explain the rest:  What is the Gospel?   Honour-shame. This is much less individualistic than the one above. The big question is, 'How can honour in the family be restored?' The family, in terms of Scripture, is the descendants of Jacob, and, by extension, the whole of humanity. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3.23). Gentiles were excluded from the covenant (Eph 2) but have now been included. The barrier between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. We are fellow citizens, with them. Jesus, as our older brother, has regained the honour he always deserved, and shares it with us,...

 I just put this chart together: (click on the picture to make it larger) It shows how interrelated all the disciplines in SIL (or any linguistics and translation organisation) are. This has several implications: We all rely on the research carried out at a high level by those working in a particular domain Most of us end up being jack of trades, master of none There's a huge danger of siloisation (which I talked about in an earlier blog) i.e. that we don't talk to each other enough I deliberately put translation under 'SE & Translation', and SE before Translation, as these days we think through the Scripture Engagement goals of a project before getting to far in planning its scope. The latter is actually inseparable from the former, as how a translation will be used, and in what format, and by whom (which audience), will very much influence how the translation project moves forward, including decisions about how to translate in a given verse of Scripture. Also note...

 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...

 In Bible translation these days we often talk about paradigms A and B. These are as follows: Paradigm A The translators and exegetical advisors all work on one language. The exegetical advisors learn this language and give both exegetical and translation input, as well as some training and tech support (of e.g. Paratext). The translators don't have to be Christian believers. Often the translators are from another major religion, or are a mixture of believers in Jesus from that background and those who follow the majority religion. The project is owned by a mixture of partners. Paradigm B A group of related languages (all part of the same language family) are organised into a cluster. One exegetical advisor gives exegetical and translation input to all these projects, as well as providing some training, and tech support (of Paratext, etc.). They never learn to speak the languages, but work mainly through the LWC. They do, however, study the linguistic features of the languages. The...

The phrase 'for him who has ears, let him listen' occurs frequently in the New Testament (Mat 11.15; 13;9 ... Rev 2.7... ). You will hear scholars say it is a Hebraism, but where is it from in the Old Testament? In Hebrew the phrase is actually in the negative: אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם וְלֹא יַאֲזִינוּ  'They have ears but do not listen.' Psalm 135.17 cf. Ezekiel 12.2*  אָזְנַיִם לָהֶם לִשְׁמֹעַ וְלֹא שָׁמֵעוּ 'They have ears to hear but do not hear', which is even closer to the NT version. It's important to know that in Hebrew 'to hear' also means 'to listen, pay attention, obey' in Hebrew. So this phrase could be translated, 'They have ears to hear but they do not listen/obey.' In Exodus 15.26 we find the word 'to hear/listen' repeated for emphasis: אִם־שָׁמוֹעַ תִּשְׁמַע לְקוֹל יְהוָה 'If to listen you listen to the voice of the LORD.' This means 'if you listen carefully' or 'if you listen and obey' to the vo...

It seems that the more we specialise, the more we siloise (no pun intended). Siloisation is, according to Wikipedia, "The splitting of personnel, data, etc. into isolated units with poor communication." One danger of siloisation is that we are only interested in our own field of work or research. "I'm a linguist", or "I'm a literacy specialist" becomes an excuse for ignoring other areas of work, all of which are important. Another danger is poor communication between the various fields of work. We don't have time to attend all the Communities of Practice, or read all the emails in all of the email groups, so we just pick our own field of interest, without interacting with related fields. Yet another problem is those who want to subsume all other fields under their own. "It's all education!" Or, "It's all language development!" Finally, we may over-simplify other areas of work. "Scripture engagement is about get...

I'm beginning to get asked a lot of questions about recording audio. I'm thinking about voice recordings of Scripture. Here are some things to think about: Equipment - you only need a USB microphone or decent headset with microphone, or a condenser microphone with pop filter and sound card (that plugs into your USB port) You also need to make an acoustic baffle to absorb sound. This will cut out unwanted echo called 'reverb'. Reverb can always be added later but there is no button to remove reverb, and people like FCBH, who we work with, are fussy about these things, as they know a voice with reverb is hard to listen to and understand (music, on the other hand, needs some reverb, especially the vocals).  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bTK6tZzzaE is a good video on how to make a simple acoustic baffle. You can make a small tent in your room, but this gets hot and stuffy in places like Central Asia... Make ...