Featured Books on Bible Translation

For the KJV fan (including me!) Gustavas Paine wrote a great book, The Men Behind the King James Version. This has a lot of biographical material in it, but is mainly a history of the translation and how it occurred. It's a must read for anyone interested in the KJV. And by the way, there is no mention anywhere in the book of a miracle that made the translation perfect. As I said in a previous post, providence does not produce perfection; only a miracle can do that. When Jesus healed someone, they were perfectly cured with never a relapse. However, when God uses a doctor to providentially heal someone of cancer through medical treatments, a relapse is possible and may even be God's will.

The Lifeline Japanese New Testament is finished and is being proofread now. Let me tell you, even after five or six times through, our proofreaders find errors. One of our proofreaders pointed out (one example of many) a couple of places in Matthew 25 where we got the honorifics wrong (crucial in Japanese). If only I had a miracle instead of proofreaders!!

 

I'm not sure what your point is. Of course I thought of this verse when I made that statement, but what happened in that healing was still a miracle, even if it was a short process. The miracle you reference does not contradict what I wrote. This man never had a relapse, or I think the historical record would have related it.

Miracles are when God reaches down from grace into nature, and does something contrary to nature. That's exactly what this miracle was though it was a short process. Providence, on the other hand, is God working in history without contravening the laws of nature.

 

I'm sure that's at least one reason.

 

I have two biographies of Cameron Townsend, founder of Wycliffe, they Bible translation mission. He was a huge figure in the world of missionary Bible translation, and deserves much credit for what is happening in that type of ministry nowadays. He was truly a great man and servant of Christ.

First of all, A Thousand Trails is the personal journal of Townsend, as edited by Hugh Steven, who adds some helpful material. It is full of great stories about Townsend's growth as a missionary: evangelizing, learning the culture, growing in grace. His main ministry in his early days was as a colporteur, someone who distributes and sells literature. When later he founds Wycliffe, it is interesting to follow his thought processes.

The second book is a regular biography, Uncle Cam, by James and Marti Hefley. It's a blessing, and I highly recommend it. However, there were two sad discoveries for me in the book. First of all, unfortunately, Townsend was quite ecumenical and believed in cooperating with the Catholics (cf. p. 225, etc.). Secondly, he did not believe that Wycliffe missionaries should engage in any direct evangelism (tracts, evangelistic meetings, etc.), believing that they should only be Bible translators (pp. 169-170). His reason for this was fear that such activities might get them kicked out of certain countries. However, from my perspective, with still 3000 languages with no Bible, getting kicked out of a country or two would not hinder the Gospel in the long run!

 

If you want a good book telling about a tribal Bible translation, read Jungle Jewels and Jaguars, by Martha Duff Tripp (Harvest Day Books, 2008). The subtitle is "Living with the Amueshas Translating God's Word."

Tripp takes us all the way from the start, through mapping the phonemes, morphemes, syntax, and semantics, through literacy efforts, talking about the translation partners, to the publication of Mark and eventually the NT.

There are also some great stories of God at work, such as the story of Peter in Ch. 27. The Ameshua prayed to the sun as their "Father God," but Peter began to wonder if the sun were a god. He thought maybe there was a real "Father God" somewhere. Then came the day when he was given a Gospel of Mark in his own language, and his eyes were opened. Peter became "the first missionary evangelist among his own Ameshua people!" (p. 138).

 

I previously discussed Meaning Based Translation, by Mildred Larson. There is a biography of her translation experiences, Treasure in Clay Pots, by her and Lois Dodds. She worked with the Aguaruna tribe of northern Peru, translating the NT (probably from English) into their language and seeing a remarkable work of God (along with other missionaries). Towards the end of the book it says, "There are more than 100 congregations, with well over 8,000 believers" (p. 288). So God used her and the other missionaries in a wonderful way.

What is interesting about the book is that she humbly recounts her growth in the Lord, learning to lean on Him, throughout the book. For example, when she first went to the field, she did not believe demons existed. However, she was eventually forced to recognize the realities of demon possession.

She wrote, “During the years that Jeanne and I had worked among the Aguaruna, we had believed medicine to be the all-powerful force that would overcome superstition and sorcery. If we could prove that all sickness had a natural cause, people would be free from their terrifying fears of it, related to supernatural sources as they considered it to be” (p. 205). However, one day Mildred encountered a sick woman who the Aguaruna said to be demon possessed, and Mildred saw that it was true. Her whole perspective changed and she began seeking the fullness of the Holy Spirit in order to reach such people, and God gave her the victory.

 

Any biography about William Tyndale, the original English Bible translator, is going to be good. I have a short one by Bruce and Becky Durost Fish (yep, that's their name) in the "Heroes of the Faith" series, William Tyndale. The subtitle is "Bible Translator and Martyr."

Among many other things, I learned that the first Tyndale Bible was distributed in a handwritten, and was not actually printed until many years later. (Gutenberg's press was already in existence.) Also, much of the translating was done not by Tyndale himself, but by his students.

 

It's Sunday afternoon and I have a half hour before the cast meeting for the 4th performance of our church's Christmas play, "A Christmas Carol." My son and I are "charity solicitors" again this year. There has been a remarkable response from the community, and soul saved. So I thought I'd post about another book: My Love Must Wait, by David Bentley-Taylor, a biography of translator Henry Martyn.

Martyn (1781-1812) was an awesome linguist and translator who translated the Farsi (Persian) Bible and others. (Incidentally, it's time for a new Farsi Bible, and one of our students is committed to that.) The title is because Martyn went to the mission field without his fiance, who did not want to go. He eventually died on the mission field young and alone--what a testimony of devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Martyn was an incredible linguist who not only knew Greek and Hebrew, but prayed in them (p. 103)! He is also an illustration of a translator who chose to do a version in a language that already had one, and for good reason. "And they went ahead with their translation of the Arabic New Testament, for Henry was convinced that the existing one was 'incredibly bad, not a translation but a paraphrase, and always wrong.'" (Ibid.)

 

Lady of the Tboli, by Doris Fell, is a 1979 biography of Wycliffe translator Vivian Forsberg who translated the New Testament into the language of the Tboli tribe of the Philippines along with Alice Lindquist. It's a great little biography. I greatly admire anyone who does a Bible translation of an unwritten language. The process is long and difficult: studying the semantics and grammar of the language, inventing a written language, researching the legends and stories of the people to write literacy material, teaching how to read the new alphabet, and finally being able to translate the Bible after being led by the Lord to a translation partner.

One interesting incident occurs when Eugene Nida shows up to consult, and asks for a back translation to evaluate. "Dr. Nida instructed Viv to translate the firtst two chapters--the hardest chapters in Luke--from Tboli back into English, word for word. When they finished checking these, verse after verse, question after question, Dr. Nida turned to Vivian and said, 'Young lady, you've done a splendid job'" (p. 97).

Wait a minute. I thought that according to Nida's DE theory, formal (word for word) translations could not properly transfer the meaning across the language barrier! Funny how that works.

 

Dr. Wendsland is scholar and a gracious man--nor always the same.

As for me, I'm in the hospital after emergency surgery on my intestines on Tuesday. But our little family had a very nice time celebrating the Lord's birth in my hospital room.

I hope every one else had a great Christmas.