Producing translations which encourage interaction with Scripture

READING, UK — A new book on Bible translation, consisting of chapters by six United Bible Societies (UBS) translation consultants, has been published by the specialist publisher
St Jerome Publishing.

The editor of the collection, which is entitled Bible Translation: Frames of Reference, is UBS translation consultant Timothy Wilt. Dr Wilt, who is involved in developing training programs and materials for Bible translators, describes the book as “a training tool for new translation consultants but one which will also help others involved in the production and distribution of Scriptures understand better the challenges of producing appropriate translations for particular audiences and of encouraging interaction with the Scriptures.”

In addition to Dr Wilt himself, there are five contributors: Robert Bascom, Aloo Mojola, Graham Ogden, L Ronald Ross and Ernst Wendland.

The readers they have envisaged, according to the introduction, are trainee consultants whose speciality in one academic area needs to be complemented by studies in others particularly pertinent to Bible translation. The non-specialist, introductory nature of each chapter makes the book accessible to students, publishers and “users of Bible translations”.

The book dates back to a conference on training translation consultants held in 1999. Senior consultants there identified the need for a work that would indicate important developments in the theory and practice of translation since the publication of the influential work on that subject in the late 1960s by Eugene Nida and Charles Taber.

Six consultants were appointed to address this need in terms of areas directly relevant to the translation task: the Bible, translation, communication, culture, linguistics, literature and rhetoric. Subsequent conferences, discussions at the Triennial Translation Workshop later that year and colleagues’ feedback on chapters revised after the workshop led to Bible Translation: Frames of Reference.

Bible Translation: Frames of Reference (St Jerome Publishing, ISBN 1-900650-56-8) should be ordered from St Jerome Publishing, 2 Maple Road West, Brooklands, Manchester M23 9HH, England.