The Bible is the most printed, most read book in history. Yet printing is only one step in placing God’s Word into people’s hands. The labor of translation is also strategic.
Here are some highlights of how the good news has spread into other languages since the Reformation:
1530s—William Tyndale’s English translation prepared the way for other English versions of the Bible, including the King James Version (KJV).
1534—Martin Luther finished translating the entire Bible into German.
1629—The book of Matthew was translated into the Southeast Asian language Malay.
1663—John Elliot translated the Bible into the Natick Algonquin language of North America.
1793-1834—William Carey and his associates translated the Scriptures into over 40 Asian languages.
1809 & 1816—The International Bible Society (IBS) and American Bible Society (ABS) were founded in New York City. ABS provided the first pocket Bibles for Civil War soldiers and supplied Bibles to hotels and Pony Express riders.
1823—Robert Morrison translated the entire Bible into Chinese.
1887—John Ross translated the first Korean New Testament.
2006—United Bible Societies distribute 393 million Scriptures in one year.
Today—Much translation work is left to be done. According to Wycliffe Bible Translators, of the nearly 7,000 languages spoken in the world today, more than 2,200 languages lack access to even one verse of Scripture. Only 429 language communities have access to the entire Bible in their native language.
Excerpted from an article at: www.answeringenesis.org
Source: Wycliffe Bible Translators, American Bible Society, International Bible Society, and United Bible Society.
, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. I would say that his thinking and mine are a little like Paul and James sometimes: we agree but are emphasizing different pieces of the puzzle. For example, he says, "I have maintained for years that those who say that an objective defense of truth is obsolete are dead wrong. To abandon apologetics and, thereby, embrace the relational at the expense of the rational is simply a false dichotomy." I agree. This is a false dichotomy. The relational is not anti-rational and any abandonment of there being better and worse answers to questions is foolhearty. There is such a thing as right and wrong, just and unjust, and as Christians who love our neighbors it is our responsibility to work for them in effective and fully Christian ways. Again, "They don’t need nor will they accept some watered down 'generous orthodoxy' that really is nothing but a lie born of Man’s oxymoronic canonization of the relative." I agree. Any watered down sense of generous orthodoxy that leaves us with nothing in our hands because it has all washed away is worthless. The phrase I use is "identity within diversity." We know who we are and what we believe with full awareness and love toward the myriad of other identities and beliefs, at the same time humble at the realization of the limitations of our own knowledge.
