Bible Translation and Biblical Language Competence: A Luxury?

March 24, 2020 // Paul O'Rear

For outsiders to the Bible translation community it may come as a surprise that a lot of our work, while checked against the original source language texts by translation consultants for accuracy, is generally translated from existing translations in what we call languages of wider communication (LWC). So a translation in Nigeria for example may initially be translated using English and Hausa translations as their primary source text. 

What?

They're not translating from the Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic)?

There are many reasons for this, not least of which, enabling many local people who speak the target language fluently to actively participate in the translation process, as well as enabling translations to come into being in a language community as soon as possible. This fits well with many of our Evangelical outreach goals and concerns.

In our English (and other European language) communities, we should note that we have many translations all in the same language. I can't count how many English translations there are. We have these, because for whatever reason we (or the new translators) may feel that a given translation is inadequate or that it doesn't quite capture all the nuances that we feel are important from the original source languages.

As you might imagine, each person may have a different opinion about the quality and value of any given translation because we have different opinions about what is important to carry through the translation process. Is it the inherent meaning behind the words? Is it somehow a specific meaning behind each individual word and therefore word-for-word translation? (Not really possible by the way across languages.) Is it concept to concept? These are very difficult questions when it comes to the truth and the importance of God's word. We may feel like Pilate asking Jesus, 

"What is truth"?

In any case, personally, I've always wished it were possible for all people to be able to read the texts in their original languages. I can't even do that adequately myself! (Though I continue to aspire to it.) That may be ideal, but it seems pretty unrealistic for the average church-goer. Can we at least aspire to it for translators - to ensure that they have a more comprehensive sense of the meaning of the words and texts as they were originally written? That, too, has challenges simply across the centuries.

One of the main blockers to this has been the sense of urgency in the mission of Bible translation, but also the costs both in time and finances. Can we afford to send all prospective translators to seminary and/or to Israel to learn the Hebrew language and the Jewish culture and land? Again we are faced perhaps with the dilemma between the ideal and the practical. 

Enter Biblingo.

Biblingo is a new innovative approach to learning the biblical languages that combines some of the best aspects of immersive language learning techniques along with video aids that help to both hear the language and provide visual aids for cultural and contextual comprehension. It aims to bring the Holy Land and the Ancient Near East as well the biblical languages to you, the learner, rather than incurring the costs of trying to bring you there.

I, for one, am extremely happy to see this development taking place and am hopeful that it will lower the bar for more translators and translation consultants to approach greater competency in the biblical languages. And that makes me hopeful for ultimately more accurate, clear, natural, and acceptable Bible translations for all the peoples and languages of the world, which we are trying to reach.

Paul O'Rear is the Associate International Translation Coordinator for SIL International. SIL International is a faith-based non-profit organization that advocates, builds capacity, and works with local communities to apply language expertise that advances meaningful development, education, and engagement with Scripture. SIL is currently involved in over 1,660 active language projects, representing 1.07 billion people in 162 countries.

Paul is also a member of Biblingo's advisory board and provides his expertise and experience in Bible translation to help ensure the Biblingo meets the needs of Bible translators and consultants throughout the world.