Oral Bible Translation: power in the words.
John E Stark, August 28, 2018
Many of my work hours are dedicated to helping people understand and do Oral Bible translation. Oral Bible translation focuses on accuracy of concept transmission and naturalness of expression. All other formats for Bible translation are tied, in varying degrees, to the shape of the source text. Here is a non-Biblical illustration of the challenges involved when transferring the shape of the text is important.
Most of us are familiar with the form of a limerick. Here is an example:
There once was an Irish funster
Who considered himself quite a punster
He’d make up a rhyme
Say it three times
And toss it all into a dumpster.
Imagine having to translate that into a different language. First of all, you ask “Why would you?” and you do have a point, but run with me here. The first two lines rhyme the final words, lines 3 and 4 rhyme the final words, and then line 5 has to rhyme with lines 1 and 2. You also know the syllable count is important. If that is not right, it simply is not a limerick.
Here is another limerick:
The God of heaven is great
His blessing neither early nor late
He spends all his time
With my best on his mind
All I have to do is wait.
Now we have something worth saying in another language. The content is clear enough, God’s delivery of blessing is always at just the right time. But said that way it just doesn’t have the stick-in-your-head power of the limerick. As a translator I want both the concept and the helpful delivery form, but I want the LOCAL helpful delivery form.
When things like this come up in Scripture, traditional translation settles for preserving the form, and losing the impact, of the passage. Oral Bible translation gives us the opportunity to at least try for both correct content and equally powerful delivery of God’s truth.
Right now I am at the start-up stages on three Oral Bible translation projects that are in restricted information areas. While I can’t tell you where they are, or exactly what is happening, in future updates I hope to give you background and progress reports that will allow you to pray.
The Need to Pray
Part of being a missionary is that we are expected to maintain a donor base adequate to cover the cost of our employment at Spoken. For some time now our gifts have not reached the target amount each month:
When the numbers are averaged, we were short $2,675.00 per month during the first half of 2018. Please join us in prayer. Pray that God will move in surprising and amazing ways to cover the shortfall and provide a stable, adequate monthly donation base. Pray that I would hear HIS voice as I pursue conversations and share needs. Mostly pray that this aspect of what we do actually becomes a meaningful ministry into the lives of those I talk to.
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