<aside> đź’ˇ Description: Traditionally, churches have had to rely on language experts and consultants from outside their language group to translate the Bible into their language. For many people, this process takes decades to accomplish. But what if native churches could translate the Bible for themselves instead of having to wait for foreigners to help them? This set of lessons is designed to teach those who are fluent in a language of wider communication how to create the resources necessary for mother tongue churches to translate the Bible for themselves.
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What resources would a translation team need to translate the Bible without experts to help or do it for them? Resource creators do not need a special software tool to access the resources, translators can download pdfs, but it is easy to see them all together using a translation software tool like in this screenshot:
Overview Video:
Returning Bible Translation to the Church-Perry.mp4
The best way to learn is by doing. The outline below is the order we would teach a team to create a package of translation resources for the book of 3 John while at the same time learning the process of creating the resources. Why 3 John? It’s the shortest book in the New Testament. By using such a short book you can quickly learn the entire process together as a team. Once you all understand the process and are working together well as a team you can divide up the books and resources to move more quickly. We recommend you do several short books together first and then once your team is well trained and confident, begin dividing up the work. The entire process for creating translation resources is described in detail in the Gateway Language Manual. It is called “Gateway” because you are creating a gateway for minority languages to do Bible translation. You are giving them access or making a way to the translation resources they need to do translation for themselves. Sometimes the word “Gateway” isn’t clear. Teams around the world have also used “Bridge Language”, “Strategic Language” and “Resource Language.” Why not use “Majority Language”? Because often the shared language is not the language of the majority of people. Also, it does not describe why using a language such as Spanish, Russian or Farsi is helpful to other languages groups who will use the translation resources. These language groups will not have many or any one who could use Biblical language resources or resources in English but they have second language speakers who can read and understand Tok Pisin or Hausa. You can read more about the Gateway Languages Strategy here.
| Training | Process | Software Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Creating Open Bible Story translation resources | Draft OBS and its resources | Scribe SE |
| A shared goal: **Trusted to Trustworthy | ||
| Overview of Resource Creation Cycle | ||
| Drafting a Literal Text** | Draft Literal Text | tC Create |
| Form & Meaning | ||
| **Purpose of GLT and GST | ||
| Drafting a Simplified Text** | Draft Simplified Text | |
| tC Create | ||
| Alignment Training | Align Literal Text | |
| Align Simplified Text | tCore | |
| gatewayEdit | ||
| Purpose of **translationWords** and **translationNotes | ||
| Checking 3 John using tNotes** | Check the Literal Text and Simplified Text using tWords and tNotes | |
| Characteristics of a Good Translation | ||
| Drafting tNotes | ||
| Making tW a Resource | ||
| Translating tQ | Draft tNotes, tWords and tQuestions | |
| Check that the resources are clear, accurate and natural | tC Create | |
| Drafting translationAcademy | Draft tAcademy | |
| How to Harmonize your resource toolbox | Harmonize Resources | gatewayEdit |
| The importance of the validation process | Validate Resources |
Open Bible Story Translation Resources