When I reach for my Bible, I must ask myself, which one? I have several Bibles: several versions, basic texts and study Bible editions. And I am not the only one so blessed. The average American family has three Bibles.
It is not surprising that most Americans assume everyone has a Bible in their own language.
It may come as a shock that an estimated 1.4 billion people don’t have the complete Bible in their own language. These Bibleless people can be divided into 7,388 distinct language groups, including spoken and sign languages.
The girl in the photo is among the Bibleless peoples. She and her people live in the southeastern region of Cameroon. They are Kwakum, and there is no Bible in their language. The gospel only recently arrived in their community. When they attend church, the Scriptures are read in French, which they don’t understand.
Why don’t the Kwakum have a Bible? In fact, why don’t all the languages of the world have one?
I’d like to consider five reasons why thousands of language groups still don’t have a Bible.
1. The Staggering Number of Languages
How many languages need a Bible? We must first ask how many languages are spoken around the world.
In the 1950’s, William Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators and SIL International, attempted to answer that question. After several years of research, he and his team concluded that there were 2,000 languages that needed a Bible.
Townsend and his colleagues were so confident of the number that they entitled a book, Two Thousand Tongues To Go; the Story of the Wycliffe Bible Translators.
Over the past several decades, though, research has continued, and the number of languages has grown. For instance, in eastern Cameroon, where the Kwakum live, the number of languages needing Scripture has risen as missionaries visit new regions and gain a greater knowledge of the linguistic complexity of this part of Africa.
The Kwakum live near another ethnic group, the Baka. Mission work began among them almost 30 years ago, and it continues. However, moving further into the tropical rainforest, the Pol people have no Scriptures, not to mention a church that preaches and teaches the gospel in their language. In the same region, other groups like the Bebil, Byep, and Mbaki have no Scriptures in their languages, either.
After decades of research, the number of languages spoken around the world now stands at 7,388.
There is a staggering number of languages, but that is not the main reason why so many have no Bible.
In fact, if it were not for the inaccessibility of many languages, the Bible would probably be translated into every language spoken today!
2. The Inaccessibility of Many Languages
Not only is there an incredible number of languages, but many of these languages are in inaccessible regions.
In 1845, Alfred Saker and his family arrived on the shores of modern-day Cameroon. Saker set about proclaiming the gospel among the local Duala people. By 1848, Saker and his co-workers published the Gospel of Matthew in Duala on a small printing press. The New Testament was published in 1862, and the complete Bible was finished 10 years later. In 1872, at the age of 62, Saker returned to England due to fatigue and never saw Cameroon again.
(Saker’s biography is available online here.)
Mission work and Bible translation made progress along the coast of Africa, but malaria, political instability, and the difficulties of travel made many regions and languages inaccessible.
It was not until after the First World War that missionaries arrived in other regions of Cameroon. In fact, it is only 380 miles from the coast where Saker worked among the Duala people and the region where the Kwakum live. Nonetheless, it was only in the last few years that missionaries arrived to work among this ethnic group.
Other language groups are inaccessible for political reasons.
The Uzbeks of central Asia were part of the Soviet Union. The first translation work there began in the 1970’s, but it was done by Uzbeks living in Germany and Israel. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of an independent Uzbekistan in 1991, the Bible Society of Uzbekistan was created.
The complete Bible in Uzbek was published in 2016, and after many years of work, the Word is finally available to the 30 million speakers of this language.
It is amazing to see how the gospel is penetrating regions of the world previously inaccessible, and we pray that the last remaining boundaries will fall.
Yet there are other factors that have impeded the translation of God’s Word.
3. The Elevation of One Language Over Others
As recorded in the book of Acts, the apostles proclaimed the gospel on Pentecost and by the end of that day, over 3,000 were baptized. In the following decades, the gospel spread from Jerusalem west to Rome and Carthage, a city in present-day Tunisia.
In these predominantly Latin-speaking cities, the believers apparently gradually shifted from Greek to Latin, even translating the Scriptures into Latin within three generations of the gospel arriving in this area.
The Latin-speaking Christians of the western church evangelized other regions, continuing to preach and teach from their Latin Bible. In many cases, they would read the Scriptures in Latin and then give an interpretation for those who didn’t know the language.
For instance, Patrick of Ireland preached across Ireland, but he and his followers apparently never translated the Scriptures into Irish. In the generations that followed, missionaries from Ireland traveled to Scotland and northern England. They eventually established a monastery at Lindisfarne.
One of the most prized possessions at the monastery at Lindisfarne was a Latin Bible. In approximately 720 AD, a monk by the name of Eadfrith carefully added English words below each line of the Latin, presumably to assist in the reading of the Bible in English.
This Latin Bible with an English translation, known as the Lindisfarne Gospels, is significant because it shows the high place of Latin and, at the same time, the desire of the monks to be able to read in English and make the Scriptures accessible to those who didn’t know Latin.
In the centuries that followed, the church in the West held the Latin Bible in such high esteem that it eventually banned the translation of the Bible into English and other European languages. During the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church put extreme limitations on the use of the Bible in any other language than Latin.
Time and again, those with the Bible in their own language view their translation and language as more valuable than other languages.
Still, some may ask: even if those with a Bible may not value other languages, can’t the believers without a Bible just translate for themselves?
Let’s consider the next factor that impedes translation work.
4. The Technical Requirements of Translation
Another reason many languages lack a Bible is that the work of Bible translation requires a unique group of individuals with uncommon skills.
For translation to begin, at least one person must know two languages—the language in need of a Bible translation as well as a language with an existing Bible translation. In the best of situations, the translator also knows the biblical languages.
The first Bible published in America was not in English.
It was the Bible in the Massachusetts language, a member of the Algonquian family of languages. It was the culmination of many years of work by John Eliot and his Massachusetts co-translator.
John Eliot came to New England in 1631. He was a graduate of Cambridge in England, trained for pastoral ministry and skilled in the biblical languages. After ministering in Boston for a year, he moved to Roxbury. He pastored the church for the colonists in that community; however, he had a burden for the neighboring Massachusetts villages.
Eliot began visiting the neighboring villages but could make no progress with only English. He found a man willing to teach him their language, and they started the process that led to the proclamation of the gospel and eventually to the translation of the Massachusetts Bible.
Today, most translators work as a team. It is important to have someone with some training in translation and linguistics.
Another member usually has exegetical skills and can refer to the biblical languages and commentaries. It’s also essential to have members who have an in-depth knowledge of the local language and culture, possibly even serving as pastors or lay leaders in local churches.
The Kwakum girl in the picture is witnessing in her own language community the formation of a translation team and its first year of work. An American missionary couple, Dave and Stacey Hare, are training local pastors and lay leaders in the principles of translation. They have translated five biblical narratives and are using them in the community.
With time, they will have an experienced team that draws on the skills which each member brings, whether in linguistics, biblical knowledge, or Kwakum language and culture.
Despite the importance of these first four factors, one last factor remains that is the most serious of all.
5. No Vision for Missions and Translation
The most significant reason for the thousands of languages without Scripture is a lack of a vision for the advance of the gospel to the ends of the earth and Bible translation as a part of equipping churches with the Word.
In around 340 AD, a young Christian by the name of Wulfila was consecrated as bishop and given the responsibility of establishing the church among the Goths, in present-day Bulgaria. He believed that to establish this Germanic people in the faith, they must have the Scriptures, so he assembled a team and translated the Bible into their language.
Wulfila may have been the first Christian missionary who understood the importance of having the Bible in the language of the local church so that the believers there could be properly grounded in their faith.
Unfortunately, very few church leaders shared his vision and commitment to translation over the next several centuries of the church.
In 1793, William Carey and his family left England to serve as missionaries in India. He learned the Bengali language and within a few years, had a draft of the New Testament prepared. He eventually established a printing press and, with his missionary colleagues, produced Scripture translations in more than 40 languages.
In the two centuries since William Carey, mission work has expanded at an incredible pace, and Bible translation has been a key part of strengthening churches in previously unreached ethnic groups.
However, too often, those with a Bible in their own language lose sight of the importance of proclaiming the gospel to other language groups and ensuring that they have the Scriptures in their own languages as well.
In every generation, in every believer’s heart, it is essential to recognize and advance the proclamation of the gospel to ethnic groups who have yet to hear.
Furthermore, as Wulfila and his Gothic colleagues understood, the proclamation of the gospel must be accompanied by a translation of Bible so that the church can read, teach, and preach the Scriptures and thereby strengthen believers while calling the whole language community to repentance.
A Glimpse of Worship Around the Throne
It may be discouraging to think about these five factors that have worked together to impede the translation of the Bible.
However, the point is not to discourage but to learn about the realities facing many around the world.
There is indeed an incredible need, a multitude without Christ and the Word. Yet there is another multitude.
In the fifth chapter of Revelation, Jesus appears before the throne as the Lamb that was slain. No longer a lowly servant, He stands before God the Father as the resurrected and triumphant Lamb. He is praised for giving His life to ransom a people for God from every tribe, language, people, and nation (Revelation 5:9).
In John’s vision, Jesus Christ is triumphant and worthy of all honor and praise today and for all eternity, and He will receive praise from the multitudes that He has redeemed from the ends of the earth.
My prayer is that we would see more and more of those without the Word join the multitude praising Christ for eternity—that the Lamb may receive the full reward for His obedience to the Father!
So, when you think of Bible translation and remember those without the Scriptures, join us in prayer.
Pray that God would receive glory as His life-giving Word goes forth to the nations and that those who have His Word would seek to make it available in the languages of His redeemed.