Today, fewer and fewer Bible translators are translating the Bible.
What are they doing instead? They are producing written summaries and paraphrastic or free renderings of Scripture. Many are also producing audio retellings of the Bible.
These works may have great benefit to those with and without Scripture in their language, but are they Bible translations?
What is “Bible translation”?
If you have a Bible on your desk or on your phone, you have a tangible example of Bible translation. I think we all understand what a Bible translation in our own language is. Yes, some are able to read the Scriptures in their original languages and, as a result, do not have a translation. But most believers read the Scriptures in translation.
For centuries, if not millennia, it was understood that a Bible translation was a written text equivalent to the original texts. There has been much debate about the kind of equivalence and the value of different kinds of translations, but no debate about the fact that translation produces a written text which corresponds to the source texts in the biblical languages.
It should follow that a Bible translation organization in general and translators in particular would be producing such Bible translations. However, that is increasingly not the case. In fact, many Bible translation organizations are producing at least three kinds of works that are not traditional translations. These include Scripture products, oral Bible stories, and oral retellings of Scripture or “oral Bible translation.”
What is a “Scripture product”?
There are an increasing number of Bible translation organizations that are producing “Scripture products”. What are these? In short, a Scripture product is not Scripture but contains much of the information found in different portions of Scripture.
For example, if I wanted to produce a booklet containing the teachings of Jesus Christ in a given language, that could be called a Scripture product. If I wanted to produce a summary of the Bible, that might also be called a Scripture product.
What is new in this situation is not producing summaries and collections of passages, but that Bible translators are producing these instead of Scripture.
The concept of Scripture products came to my attention during the Son of God controversy. I learned that some translators wanted to produce translations of Scripture that were not offensive to Muslim readers, known as Muslim Idiom Translations.
However, they were restricted by guidelines that prohibited translating Scripture without the traditional renderings of “Son of God” and “Father.” In response, some translators focused their attention on producing Scripture products instead of actual translations. Since Scripture products are not classified as Scripture, “Son of God” can be left out without violating any agreements on quality and accuracy.
I recently heard a missionary Bible translator share about his ministry and the Scripture products he was involved with. I doubt few in the audience understood what the difference might be between Scripture and a Scripture product. It is important for you to understand the difference. Many have giving their donations to Scripture products lacking such key terms as “Son of God.” They didn’t know, but you should know going forward.
What is “Oral Bible Storying”?
Unlike Scripture products, which are not often discussed, much attention has been given to Oral Bible Storying.
Oral Bible Storying involves producing an oral rendering of Scripture in a summarized form. It focuses on key narrative passages in Scripture, not all of Scripture.
Why would a Bible translation organization produce such oral retellings and not actual paper translations? Well, in some cases it is seen as preparing the way for actual Bible translation work. It is also seen as a way to teach some basic methods of translation and get some Bible content out into the community.
Oral Bible Storying could be an effective method as long as there is a strong commitment to actual Bible translation. However, we must not assume that a Bible translation organization producing stories will actually produce a translation.
In fact, some Bible translation organizations rightly speak of the benefits of storying for training translators, engaging the community, and evangelization, but they may not actually do any of those things themselves. Rather, some organizations mention these further activities as possible benefits. It takes a discerning eye to distinguish what an organization intends to do and what they hope will be done.
What is “Oral Bible Translation”?
Given the apparent success of Oral Bible Storying, some have moved on to producing oral renderings of larger portions of Scripture. An oral Bible translation is just that. An oral retelling of larger portions of the Bible.
My main concerns with “Oral Bible Translation” are that it is not the whole Bible and it is not a traditional translation. Although some claim that Oral Bible Translations is subject to the same quality checks as written Scripture, what I have seen thus far suggests that these works are still fairly free renderings of Scripture.
What I find concerning is that Oral Bible Translation is being presented as an alternative to traditional Bible translation for the sake of oral cultures with no Bible. We no longer need to develop alphabets and teach reading. No, just listen, interpret what we hear, and record the result. We’ll call it an oral Bible and then move on to another of the countless communities with no Scripture.
In fact, some organizations even claim that the oral retellings they produce are just as effective or more so because they overcome inherent barriers with written texts. Such claims lead me to ask why did God give His people a written text in the first place?
If an oral retelling is truly effective in ministry, it might be because the Holy Spirit moves in hearts as the Scriptures are read, preached, and taught. Isn’t the person doing an Oral Bible initially reading it in another language and then retelling it in a fairly free or paraphrastic manner in his own language? What he is doing is not much different from what many Bible teachers do on a regular basis, reading Scripture and then retelling it in the context of preaching and teaching.
With the growing commitment to Oral Bible Translation, it’s important that you understand this strategy.
It might be called “cutting-edge” and be described as having “great impact potential”. It might even be “accepted by the worldwide translation community“. But it is still not a Bible translation in the traditional sense. Nor is it a recording of a Bible translation. It is a recording of a loose rendering of Scripture, focused on quickly getting Bible knowledge into the community. It must be followed by an actual written translation.
Concluding Thoughts
More and more missionaries involved in the ministry of Bible translation are producing various products first instead of starting with the translation of written Scripture.
In some cases, this could be a good development, especially when an Oral Bible or series of biblical stories leads to actual translation. Yet it is important for church leaders and missionaries, not to mention those who support Bible translation, to understand the proliferation of products that are not Scripture.
If you give a group of Christians a Bible in their own language, they will eventually be able to read, preach, and teach the Scriptures in obedience to the apostle Paul’s injunction (1 Timothy 4:13). Furthermore, they could produce as many summaries and retellings as they like.
However, if you give the same group of Christians an oral retelling or a set of oral stories, they can not read the Scriptures or teach them as faithfully as they are commanded to do (1 Timothy 4:13; Matthew 28:20). They still need the Bible in their language to live out their faith in Jesus Christ.
A pastor in a remote corner of Africa is presently producing Bible stories in his own language. He would actually like to be translating Scripture, not stories. But the Bible translation organization assisting him will not allow that.
When I heard about his situation, I wanted others to know about these trends in Bible translation and what is and isn’t being done in the name of translating the Scriptures.
Where have all the Bible translators gone? To new strategies, every one. When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?