Church based Bible translation
Traditional translation consultant checking by an outside expert has transitioned very successfully in the Alis i Ron project in Nigeria to an innovative process owned by the Alis i Ron community.
The Alis I Ron completed their entire New testament in a traditional way… The process took longer than the community was happy with and the Alis i Ron decided to innovate the translation process and speed up translation without sacrificing quality and accuracy. I have had the express pleasure of partnering with them as they now work to translate their Old Testament.
The final checking of their translation and approval of it as "Scripture" formerly done by a consultant is now being done in a process we call "Community/Church based Quality Assurance"
I am quoting and adapting from what was written by Pastor Angwen Pancin the Coordinator of the Alis-I-Ron Bible Translation project.
It is worthwhile to
note that some scripture checkers are pastors and reverends of various denominations as
well as community leaders at various levels of society. By involving, mobilizing and
orientating people from various socio-cultural strata, the local ownership of Bible translation is feasible. A Ron adage
says: "If you don't say here you are, no one will say there you are."
Working directly with numerous people in the community enhances the translation work. By training and empowering the
Alis i Ron community to do the Quality Assurance of their own Bible, they are
taking local ownership and saying the translation is accurate, natural,
acceptable, clear and authoritative (and the Church agrees to use this Scripture).
As owners of the language are now doing the checking, the work moves faster and Scripture is used within the shortest possible time. The zealous team of community checkers are good persons who will inform their communities about what is going on with their Bible translation and this promotes immediate acceptability and usability of the translated Scripture.
Pastor Pancin says that the paradigm for community leadership in Bible translation is inspired from Exodus 18 where Moses was advised by his in-law to include people for effective leadership. On this note, sharing people in groups for "consultant checking" is a sure way of democratizing the task. Community Quality Checking is a vision and task that helps the language translation world. The community now owns the project work for life and uplifting of their community and the diaspora. You cannot separate the community from their language as it is a tool that transports the minds of all those alive and even those yet unborn.
He continues: Permit me to say that gone are the days when one or two people will take decades to translate the whole Bible without the deepest participation of the community because the people were passive. Now the community checking and consultant exercise are active and participatory. I am optimistic that this will change the narrative of the translation industry.
I talked about this Church based approach in a short blog video last year. Here's a link to that post in case you want to hear other advantages of Church based Bible translation.
We'd love to hear your comments and feedback, please let us know your thoughts and experiences.
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