Scripture Books

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SCRIPTURE BOOKS

Although the Bible has been translated into the trade language of Papua New Guinea known as “Melanesia Tok Pisin,” there are still many people in the tribes, including Wusuraambya, who understood little or none of the tok Pisin language. Whenever you listen to the people talking amongst themselves, you will always here them conversing in their tribal language. That is their heart language, the language that they understand best. Yes, many people do converse in the Pidgin language but it is a very limited trade language through which it is impossible to communicate the deep meaning of Scripture.

In 2005 as Andrew was teaching through the Scriptures in a public forum for the first time using only Scripture and lessons that had been translated into their language, we soon heard people saying amongst themselves, “Now we understand – that is our language. Before we only understand the surface meaning of what we heard but now we hear the deeper meaner. ”

Until present the books of Genesis, Ruth, Mark, Acts, and 6 chapters of Romans have been checked, printed, and distributed among the believers. There are also many thousands of verses from both the Old and New Testaments that are in progress – that have been drafted and some significantly checked, but still need to be checked and approved by a trained translation consultant before they can be freely printed and distributed to the believers.

The unapproved Scripture now forms two bound books which only the Bible teachers have access to and are allowed to use. All of these portions require extensive comprehension and content checking to make certain that the people understand these Scriptures correctly. d

The book show here includes Genesis, Mark and Acts which have been both checked and approved by trained translation consultants. This process involves first having the missionary read a portion of Scripture (preferably a complete story or discourse unit) to a native language speaker. The tribal person then repeats what he heard the missionary say, but in the Pidgin English language so that the consultant knows what he understood from that Scripture passage. The consultant then evaluates whether the Scripture was interpreted and understood correctly, or whether some corrections need to be made. After this process of checking is finished the consult sends a report to the translator (missionary) who then proceeds to make any necessary corrections before putting the Scripture into print for the majority of the believers.

Before the book of Acts was completed individual copies of Genesis and Mark (Mark shown here on left) were printed and distributed to the believers.

During a consultant check of Romans recently Cathy was able to have her translation of Ruth checked as well. The tribal ladies were thrilled when she handed it out to them printed and bound during the summer school break.

Here you see the translation consultant working with us to check the book of Ruth and several chapters of Romans. The consultant (seen at the left side of the table) made a special trip from the USA to check the translation work of many missionaries working here in Papua New Guinea.

Below you can see several of the believers reading from the Wusuraambya translation of Scripture.