Paul's Epistle to the Bayote

Hebrews 4:12 says: For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

One of the most powerful experiences I had during this Bible translation time in Guinea-Bissau was witnessing this verse come to life.

My team of Djola-Bayote-Aramme speakers were wrapping up their translation of the sixth chapter of  Galatians when João Manga stopped and exclaimed: “This is amazing! It’s as if the apostle Paul is speaking directly to our Bayote churches right here today!” When I asked him to explain what he meant, this is what I learned:

Translating Galatians into Djola-Bayote-Aramme

Bayote tribal customs continue to run deep in their local culture. One of those is a major animistic ceremony that happens every few years in which young and old men alike must go through the tribal rites of circumcision. Unlike the Old Testament Jewish case, where God had both spiritual identity and health considerations in mind for circumcision, the Bayote see this strictly as a sign of tribal loyalty and, most likely, a means of appeasing the demons and spirits. As a result, Bayote Christians have resisted participating in the ceremony.

Doing so, however, has brought with it significant persecution. Last year, a mob attacked and totally destroyed a brand-new church claiming it was being built as a place to hide boys in order to keep them from the circumcision rites. So, when my friends read in Galatians, Paul’s strong admonition not to follow those who were trying to promote the old legal Jewish regulations of circumcision, but to find salvation in the cross of Christ alone, they said, “This is exactly what our people need to hear today!  Paul says, ‘Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised… they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’” (from Gal 6:12-14) 

Furthermore, they exclaimed that being able to read these words of Paul in their own Bayote language dialect brings not only new relevance to the Bible but will also be a tremendous encouragement to stand up in the face of community opposition.

If you’re interested to hear Joao Manga personally share this story, here's a YouTube link to a short video interview I did with him where he explains just how impactful Galatians will be for his people: https://youtu.be/GNMHxXHOB7Y

Standing at the MAST

MAST is an acronym for Mobile Assistance Supporting Translation. It’s a revolutionary method of helping bi-lingual speakers translate God’s Word into their native tongue in a relatively short time frame.

The team of national translators I worked with at the MAST event 

Up until recently, the traditional approach to Scripture translation involved a professional linguist who would painstakingly learn a target language and then carefully figure out how to put the original Greek and Hebrew words of the Bible into that language. Unfortunately, this process has often mean an average of twenty to thirty years to complete just the New Testament. And when you add up the total costs of that process, it can easily cost over a million dollars. With thousands of languages in the world still without a Bible, you can imagine how long and expensive it would be to rely solely on this approach for translation.

Then, a couple of years ago, Wycliffe Associates, that historically was strictly the volunteer support organization of the professional Bible translation world, began experimenting with a method used to teach English to national translators as a means of also helping them produce translated Scripture. That experiment is what is now called MAST. It’s based on the following assumptions:

·        Many people in the world are actually bi-lingual and fluent in both their native tongue and another key trade language, like Arabic, Swahili, French, Portuguese, etc.

• ·        There are roughly fifty of those key languages in the world that provide a gateway to virtually all of the rest of the languages that have never had a Bible.
• ·        If a good quality Bible were to exist in that gateway language, then people should be able to translate it fairly easily directly into their native tongue, eliminating the need to first become a Greek and Hebrew scholar or a professional linguist.
• ·        By bringing clusters of native, bi-lingual speakers together for 10 to 14 days and guiding them in a disciplined eight-step process through a facilitator, a significant amount of Scripture can get translated to a first draft quality. Second and third level translation accuracy can then be achieved by subsequent checking involving more speakers from the language community and ultimately, leaders with theological training.
• ·        By involving enough people and getting them together frequently, it is possible to get an entire New Testament translated in less than a year.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, not everyone is convinced about this methodology. You can easily understand someone who has spent the better part of their ministry life slaving over a particular Bible translation wondering what kind of true quality a one-year New Testament project might have when it has been done by untrained lay-people. Since I’ve been promoting this MAST concept for Wycliffe Associates, I decided I needed to answer that question for myself by actually participating in a MAST event. That is what has taken me to Guinea-Bissau for the past two weeks.

The first chapter of Galatians ever to be printed in the
Djola-Bayote-Aramme language

During this time, I’ve been one of five facilitators for a team of native speakers. My particular team was from the Aramme dialect of Djola-Bayote language group. Together, we learned all about the eight MAST disciplines and then jumped right in tackling the books of Galatians, Titus and Philemon. I’m happy to report that we got all three books done, checked and printed by the last day of our event—the first ever in their language. 

What is my opinion of the process? I have to say I’m impressed. Without question, the eight MAST disciplines are critical to keep folks on track with as accurate a translation process as possible – especially the final step of back translating to be sure the new language preserves the same sense as the Bible used as a source text. Does it produce a perfect translation? Certainly not at the first level draft stage. But, with the subsequent second and third level checking process, I’m more confident than ever that an excellent native translation is possible--one that clearly presents the Truth of God’s Word. And, by using low-cost print-on-demand technology, new, corrected copies of Scripture can quickly and inexpensively replace earlier translated versions.

Most important of all for me, however, was coming away with a sense that although a MAST translation may not have the quality of an ESV or NIV Bible, it is definitely not going to produce such inaccuracies that people reading it would fall into some sort of theological heresy. And, most important of all, MAST is very viable way to start getting Bibles into the hands of the thousands of languages that need them in order to support evangelism, church planting and discipleship. If we’re serious about the urgency of completing the Great Commission, than we need to be equally serious about the urgency of getting to the point where all people on earth can hear God’s Word in their heart language.

And after these past two weeks, the Djola-Bayote-Aramme people can do just that!

Return on Investment

It’s not often that you get to see the return on an investment made in a young African leader. However, during these past two weeks here in Guinea-Bissau, I’ve been able to do just that.

Miguel Idibe was someone I was introduced to three years ago by Bruce Smith, president of Wycliffe Associates. Bruce had met Miguel at a conference on Bible translation and recognized him as a young leader needing some special help by someone who could communicate in Portuguese . That introduction started a three year friendship and mentoring relationship in which I’ve had the privilege of helping Miguel establish a registered non-profit Bible translation organization, recruit a board of directors and find some funding to refurbish administrative facilities. Today, the Instituto de Tradução e Alfabetização (ITA) is the primary national entity in Guinea-Bissau initiating, coordinating and monitoring Bible translation.

Stepping out of my typical coach/mentor shoes, I decided to accept an invitation to be a facilitator at an ITA-sponsored Bible translation event. Coordinated by a Wycliffe Associate’s team of assistants from the US and Brazil, this event, called a MAST (Mobile Assistance Supporting Translation,) has gathered four different language translation teams to tackle a range of New Testament and Old Testament books. Since the MAST methodology is quite new (and not without a certain amount of controversy) I will dedicate another blog post just to that.

But, what was really special for me arriving here was seeing the sparkle in Miguel's eyes as he welcomed us and the forty-some national translators on our first evening and then proudly oriented us to his African bush “campus” refurbished from an old inherited WEC missionary compound. For me, it was a chance to see the dream he presented to me three years ago in a Dakar restaurant now transformed into a living reality. 

Like I said above, it’s not always that I get to see the fruit of consulting, emails and actual visits to Africa like I am getting to do this week. Without question, it’s one of those times when it’s clear that that investment has paid off. On top of that, Miguel and ITA are well on their way toward making significant impact in eradicating Bible illiteracy among the twenty-some languages in this tiny but strategic country in West Africa.