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Newsletter May 2008

A day at IBT Moscow

What can a day be like at IBT in Moscow? Here are some glimpses from a day in May 2008:

In the morning exegetical advisor Vitaly returned from Tuva in southern Siberia, where he had checked the last four books of the Tuvin Old Testament with the team. He will discuss 2 Chronicles with consultant Andrei, otherwise the text is ready. Now the team will go on with the revision of the New Testament, and Vitaly will continue to insert cross references in the text. He hopes to hand over the full text to the publishing department at the beginning of next year. The presentation of the first Tuvin Bible is planned to take place in Kyzyl in two years!

In the Quiet Room the Bashkir team was busy working on checking the New Testament - Galatians, Ephesians and 1 Thessalonians. The translator had come from Ufa in Bashkortostan, and Stefano, the exegetical checker, from Germany. This will be the first New Testament in Bashkir, so we asked the translator what people are saying about this translation — do the Bashkirs need the Bible in their language? “Yes, it is very much needed,” he said. “The Bashkirs are many, and our people have the right to read the Bible in their own language. It will also raise the status of Bashkir; it will enrich the language and help to preserve it. Even some mullahs have a positive attitude towards the translation. They say: 'The Bible is a great text, like the Koran. These books should be on the same shelf.' Those who are negative are usually people who don't know much about faith but who anyway claim to be Muslims.”

A member of the Evenki translation team was also here in order to work on the Evenki Children's Bible. Over a cup of tea in the kitchen she said: “When I started to work on the Bible translation many years ago, I thought that I will do this as a cultural monument to my Siberian language. But over the years I have realised that the Evenkis really do need this book and its message. As for myself, I have gained so much spiritually from working on the text, so I am now at the point of considering getting baptised.”

Two members of the Altai translation team dropped in to say goodbye — they had delivered the text of the revised Altai New Testament to the publishing department for audio-recording. When an NT is first published in a language, it usually has to live among the people for several years. It is when people get engaged in the Bible, when they use it daily, that they can give us their feedback and wishes for revision. This has now been the case with the first Altai New Testament, which was published five years ago. The audio-recording of the revised text will show if anything else needs to be changed before printing.

A day with so many visits from the Bible translation groups is a very happy day!

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