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Why is Bible translation
needed? Don't these peoples speak Russian?
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the non-Slavic peoples in the
CIS have rediscovered their ethnic and cultural identity. They desire
to speak their own language and to promote their own cultural and
national values. Although most of them do speak and understand Russian,
many testimonies show how important it is to make the Bible available
in their mother tongues:
”My relatives accused me of abandoning my origin and our Nenets
culture and traditions when I became a Christian. The Nenets think
that one has to become Russian in order to be a Christian. Therefore
it is important to get the New Testament in our language. Now, when
the Gospel of Luke is printed and we have the Christian words in
Nenets, I can tell my grandmother and my relatives about God in a
language that they will understand!”
A Nenets believer
“We need the Bible in our language. Earlier, when I read it in
Russian, I understood with my head. But now, when I read in my own
language, I understand with my heart, and I can see that I am
beginning to change.”
Member of the Karakalpak
team
”God’s Word in
our native language is heard more directly and stirs the deepest
feelings.”
Reader of the Four
Gospels in Chuvash
“Most of the
Kalmyk people know Russian, but they say: ‘When we read the Gospel in
our language we receive God as our own, but when we read it in Russian
then Jesus Christ is a Russian God.’”
Member of the Kalmyk
translation team
“All my life I
thought that God is a Russian God, but now when I read the Gospel in
my own language I understand that he is mine, and that he loves me.”
Reader of the Gospel in Lezgi
What does Bible translation mean to the
translators?
”
Is there anything to write, after the Bible?”
The
Altais are about 70,000 and live in the Republic of Altai, the Altai
territory and in the Kemerovo region in Russia.
Their language belongs to the Turkic language family. The Altais are
Orthodox Christians / Shamanists.
 Sergei
Torbakov, the translator of the Altai New Testament, is a well-known
author and poet. At the presentation of the Altai New Testament
in December 2003, he said:
”Next year I will be 50 years old. But only the last 12 years have
been meaningful, the years I have been working on the New Testament.
What I did earlier seems empty and meaningless. Is there anything to
write, after the Bible? Now I find it difficult to let go of this
book, knowing that I shall not be able to do anything more on it. But
it is good to know that we have done absolutely everything we could to
make a good translation.”
Central Asia
 Asya*
is translating the Bible into one of the languages in Central Asia.
The Christians among her people are under great pressure by the
authorities, and the work has to be done in secret. “I agreed to do
this work because I wanted to become a better Muslim,” she said. “I
knew that the Bible was one of the holy books mentioned in the Koran.
While I was translating I thought a lot about the text and we had many
interesting talks in the team. The Bible words spoke to me, and after
some months I decided to become a Christian. Then something
interesting happened – my translation work completely changed! What
had earlier been only words now became meaningful, and it became much
easier to work!
*not her real name
The
Chuvash are about 2 million and live in the Republic of Chuvashia in
Russia. Chuvash belongs to the Turkic language family. The Chuvash are
Orthodox Christians.
 Peter
Yakovlev is a well-known Chuvash writer and poet. “After perestroika,
when Cheboksary opened up and foreigners were allowed in, a family of
American linguists arrived. They requested language teachers to help
them learn Chuvash. Through an interpreter I found out that their
reason for this was to offer exegetical help to those working on a new
Chuvash Bible translation. At first, I wondered whether this was
really necessary, since we already possessed a good translation.
Personally, I had read the Bible even during the Soviet era, but
understood it only with my head, not with my heart. Even though I
had been baptized as a child, I didn’t really ever get deeply into
reading Christian literature. When I read the draft of the new
translation, I realized that the translators were not literary
experts, and that they were translating on a very simple level. They
understood spoken Chuvash, but a good translation requires more than
this. It requires knowledge of the literary language, of the
socio-cultural language environment, of how the translation would be
understood by the general reader. This all needs to be done on a
professional level. I thank God that I was able to join the
translation team. I am like the prodigal son who has returned home.
Now I am analyzing the poems I wrote earlier and can see that I was
seeking God. This work means everything to me.”
The
Ossetes (about 600 000) live in the Republic of North Ossetia,
Northern Caucasus, in Russia. The Ossetic language belongs to the
Iranian language family. The Ossetes are Orthodox Christians /
Muslims.
The
philological checker of the Ossetic New Testament, published in 2004,
was
 a
well-known Ossetic writer. He was of Muslim background. In recent
years he had many thoughts about Christianity and there were many deep
discussions in the translation team. In 2003 he suddenly fell ill with
a serious form of cancer. For some months he fought the illness. One
evening he asked the translator to come to his home. He prayed
together with him and surrendered his life to the Lord. The next day
he died.
true-life stories
“If
they would only hear…”
The Tatars are about 7 million and live
in Tatarstan, Bashkortistan and other regions of Russia. Their
language belongs to the Turkic language family. The Tatars are Muslims
/ Orthodox Christians.
 A
large number from the Tatar diaspora were assembled at the House of
Nationalities in Moscow for the public release of the first New
Testament in the Tatar language. Earlier a similar presentation had
successfully taken place in the Tatar capital, Kazan, and now we
wanted to repeat the event for the Tatars living in Moscow. However,
this time several ardent Muslims were in the audience and started to
violently question the new book. The atmosphere became tense and
hostile, and finally one person said in a loud voice: “It would be my
duty to do away with any Tatar who abandoned the Muslim faith!” How
would we find a way out of this difficult situation? “Arguing will not
bring us anywhere. Please, let us just listen to the Bible text
itself!” suggested the moderator of the event, trying to calm down the
angry participants. A Tatar woman went to the front and in a clear
voice started to recite from the 6th chapter of Luke’s Gospel:
“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,
blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied…” Slowly the
atmosphere in the room changed. People nodded and smiled as they
listened to the beautiful words in Tatar. With the help of the Bible
words themselves, the event ended in peace.
“Why do you want to translate the Bible into our
language?”
The Nogais are about 75 000 and live in the
republic of Dagestan, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic and in the
Stavropol territory in Russia. Their language belongs to the Turkic
language family. The Nogais are Muslims.T
 The
young Nogai girls looked at us with tense, mistrusting faces. “Why do
you want to translate the Bible into our language?” They were students
at Karachay University and came from villages in Dagestan where the
Karanogai dialect is spoken. We were in Cherkessk in order to do field
testing of some parts of the Nogai Bible translation and had given
them the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel to read – the story about
Zecharaiah and his wife Elizabeth, and about Mary and the birth of
Jesus Christ. These girls had never read the Bible and knew nothing
about Jesus and his birth. The only thing they knew was that the Bible
was foreign to their religion and therefore they were suspicious. They
hesitantly started to read the text, but as they read we watched their
faces and saw how they changed. They became interested, forgot about
the time and wanted to read more and more. “When will this book be
published and where can we get hold of it?” they asked. When we left
they thanked us for wanting to translate the Bible into the Nogai
language.
“Look, here it says that a man should not hate
his enemy”
The
Kalmyks are about 200 000. They live in the Republic of Kalmykia in
southern Russia. The Kalmyk language belongs to the Mongolian language
family. The Kalmyks are Buddhists.
 Nina
gathers elderly Kalmyk women and reads to them from the Kalmyk NT.
“Often they say ‘You speak about a Russian God – we are Buddhists, we
have our own belief.’ But when I speak to them in Kalmyk and read from
the New Testament, they listen with interest. A woman, 99 years old,
said ‘If Jesus Christ is a God who forgives sins, then I want to
become a Christian!’ The Kalmyks need to hear God’s Word in their
mother tongue in order to understand that God is also their God and
not only the God of the Russians.”
“When we
distribute the Kalymk New Testament in villages we read out the most
important passages about the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, and also from Revelation where it states that peoples of every
country and language shall one day pray to the Lord,” Nina says. “Most
of the Kalymyk people know Russian, but they say: ‘When we read in our
language we receive God as our own, but when we read in Russian then
Jesus Christ is a Russian God.’”
“Twice a
month we travel to a man and read the New Testament with him. Once
when we arrived he was waiting impatiently for us. He pointed to the
Gospel of Luke that lay open on the table. ‘Look, here it says that a
man should not hate his enemy but should love him.’ He told us that it
had been a shock to discover this. He had thought about it for several
days and then finally decided that if it was in the Holy Scriptures
then it had to be right. He was to go to a wedding where he knew that
he would meet a bitter enemy with whom he had intended to settle an
account. He went to the wedding and after some inner struggles he
approached his enemy and offered him his hand. It felt as if a great
weight had been lifted from the old man’s heart.”
“Now I know every Friday what to read in our
mosque”
The
Uzbeks (about 20 million) live in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Uzbek
belongs to the Turkic language family. The Uzbeks are Muslims.
 A
Christian woman from Central Asia regularly travels to her Muslim
homeland, where everyone knows that she is a Christian. “Some years
ago I came to a village inhabited by Uzbeks. A new mosque had just
been built,” she reported. “The mullah proudly showed me the new
building and probably expected criticism from me as a Christian. But I
praised the mosque and said that I hoped that God’s word would be
preached there. He was surprised, and when I gave him a copy of the
New Testament in Uzbek he took it, touched it with his lips and
forehead and finally held it close to his heart. A group of men had
gathered around us and when they saw how the mullah received the New
Testament with such honour they also wanted books, but unfortunately I
did not have any more with me.”
“Recently I visited my country and travelled back to the same
village,” she said. “The mullah had heard about my arrival and came
towards me on the road. While still far off, he called out: “My
daughter! You’ve returned at last! Do you remember that when you were
here last time you gave me the New Testament in Uzbek? I am so
grateful to you! Now I know every Friday what to read in our mosque,
and I have a holy book which shows the way to God in my language. The
other books that I have I could not understand, but this one helps me
to prepare my sermons and give hope to those who listen!”
“Never stop your work!”
Stories from prisons
 “I've
had the opportunity to give many concerts in prisons and penal
colonies”, said Vladimir, professional musician who ministers to
prison inmates. “It's amazing whom you can meet in such places -
Uzbeks, Tatars, Chuvash, Turkmen, basically representatives of the
entire former Soviet Union. Until recently I focused mainly on music
in my ministry and did not distribute Christian literature, except for
a few Russian Bibles. But people kept asking for books. I remember
one of the first requests - did I have any literature in Georgian or
Armenian? So I started thinking, where can I get such books? After
three years I met Ivan (the director of the Evangelical Christian
Union's prison ministry), and saw all these books in different
languages in his office. They didn't know which of these books should
be sent to which prison. At that moment my heart told me, "God really
exists." They didn't know where to send the books, and I didn't know
where to get them! At that time I had just come from a prison in
Tatarstan and was wondering where to get some literature for the
inmates. And here it was! I usually take my saxophone and equipment
when I visit prisons. This time I also decided to take as many of your
books with me as I could. The prison warden there is a Muslim Tatar
himself, and he allowed me to bring the books in. After the concert I
announced that whoever wanted to receive a Bible or a Gospel in their
own language could come and get one. So just imagine, about 70 percent
of the people in the huge auditorium came forward! I didn't know which
books were in what language, so I picked five men who knew other
languages to sort the books into piles. As the inmates received the
books, I could see they were in tears.
Your literature is a sign from God. I beg you, whatever problems you
might face, financial or otherwise, never stop your work. It is very
much needed; each book means a redeemed soul! There are so many
inmates sentenced to time in prison for murder, rape, drugs, robbery.
But each page can convert these hearts. Continue doing your work. My
concerts are a mere drop in the ocean, but your books are more
important than all my music, because they contain the Word of God.”
"You
have given us spiritual food!"
Letters from prisons
”Praise be to God! You have given us spiritual food—two New
Testaments in Azeri and one Children’s Bible! If you could have seen
the Azeri brother when he received God’s Word in his language! What a
joyful scene! His eyes shone with gratitude.”
This
sincere message of thanks came from a prison colony in the remote Amur
area of Siberia. The writer was called Sergei, who led the Christian
fellowship group within the prison.
”Our
fellowship is open to all people who believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ—we don’t limit membership to certain denominations,” Sergei
wrote. ”I am 34 years old and am serving the remaining 3 years and 8
months of my sentence. But I am free in the Lord Jesus since I became
a believer a year ago. It is a tremendous feeling, but hard to
describe in words. I don’t have any friends or relatives, but the
Lord has given me a large family of believing Christians.”
”Earlier in my life, I had no interest in knowing where Bibles and New
Testaments are produced. But now that the Lord has brought me in
contact with you, I am overwhelmed with gratitude for your work,” he
added. ”I am sending a small gift of 50 roubles ($1.5). I would like
to give more, but it is not possible. The entire fellowship of
believers in Jesus Christ here at Prison Colony No.14/3 greets you.
And you can be assured that we are praying for you!”
referencies
What do
others say about IBT's work?
"The
single-minded work of the Institute for Bible Translation ... has been
remarkable with its vision to provide the Scriptures for all the
non-Slavic peoples in the USSR. Many translation projects were started
in very restrictive conditions under Communism."
Patrick Johnston in
‘Operation World’
"For many
people it is very important to get in touch with the Word of God
through their mother tongue. It is hard to overestimate the efforts of
the Institute staff in helping such people. It will result in the
publications that might be used as a subsidiary resource for
understanding of the Holy Scripture and thus be a substantial help for
our Orthodox clergy in their pastoral work."
The Most Holy Patriarch of Moscow
and All Russia Alexis II
“IBT’s work is enriching cultural traditions and
drawing various people groups closer together on the most real and
understandable basis – the basis of communion with God. After all, the
Word of God and contact with it unites people against the forces of
evil, which are so openly flaunting themselves in the modern world.
That is why I think that IBT is supplementing, compensating for, and
sometimes completely taking the place of the work that we Orthodox
priests ought to be doing at least within the bounds of our own
Orthodox tradition. And their work is not a phony substitute or a
fraudulent surrogate. It’s just that the Lord decided that in our
time, this is probably the most effective and dependable method to
spread the Word of God in our land – namely through the partnership of
Orthodox believers with Christians of other confessions for the
purpose of making the Bible available, understandable and close to all
people.”
Very Rev. Boris Danilenko –
Director of the Synodal Library
of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow
“All of us
remember our Lord’s Great Commission “Go and preach to all nations”.
But how can we preach without the Word of God in our hands? This is
why the work of IBT, a work that is impossible to overestimate, is
exactly what we need – Russians, Ukrainians, Kyrgyz, the peoples of
the North and Far East of Russia – all of us”.
Rt. Rev. Pavel
Okara –
Bishop, Chairman
of the Evangelical
Pentecostal Union of Russia
"Our hearty gratitude to all who work in the Institute
implementing God’s holy work — providing the Holy Scriptures to the
peoples of Russia, spreading His Word among the nations. Praise the
Lord! His infinite Love ignites his faithful followers to continue the
cause of salvation".
Rt. Rev. Yuriy Sipko –
Bishop, Chairman of the
Baptist Union of Russia
"I am proud to be invited to join the Council of
Reference of IBT and to be associated with the translation of the Word
of God into the many languages of the former Soviet Union, spoken by
millions of people."
Rev. Canon Dr Michael
Bourdeaux
founder of Keston College and Institute
"It was fascinating to read the initiatives to this
huge arena with so many languages and ethnic backgrounds. What a vast
and neglected mission-field you have entered. That is wonderful. I am
delighted to give my support to your ministry."
Rt.. Rev. Michael Baughen –
Bishop, formerly of Chester
"I consider it a real privilege to be on the IBT
Council of Reference. IBT plays a major role in co-operation with
other translation agencies in the vital task of Bible translation for
the 130 languages of Russia and the CIS. With growing Christian
churches and fellowships this task is of vital importance."
Martin
Goldsmith
All Nations Christian Collage
"I have known and admired the work of IBT since its
inception. Over the years the vision to provide God's Word for every
people within the former Soviet Union has been followed with
unfaltering commitment. We thank God for our partnership with them in
a substantial number of translation projects. I warmly commend their
ministry for the prayers and support of God's people."
Dr John
Bendor-Samuel –
Wycliffe Bible Translators |
