Steve Stanley who serves among the Kovol people of Papua New Guinea is very aware that translating God’s word is a big responsibility. As such, accountability to others is very important. NTM’s Bible translation procedure builds in accountability to make sure Steve is not the only person who gets to decide that what he has translated is an accurate translation.
As part of the process, a content check by one of his co-workers is required to compare it to an original Bible text. Has anything been added? Has anything been taken away?
Having truly settled back into life in Kovol now, Philip (Steve’s co-worker) has been able to content check Genesis 37 for him. Philip successfully found some issues that needed correcting. Some Kovol was off, and a few things were missing altogether. Steve is grateful that together they can improve the translation!
A further accountability step is that the translation will be checked by a translation consultant: a missionary who is well down the road of their own tribal language’s translation and has helped many others.
To prepare for the consultant check Philip needs to take the Kovol that Steve has translated and put it into quite literal English. Doing so gives a window into the translation decisions they have made which the consultant will be able to comment on. The back translation process generates good discussion for the team too. Sometimes Philip’s back translation hasn’t matched what Steve expected and so they talk it through and improve their understanding of the language together.
It is, of course, still a work in progress. Lots to learn from each other for sure!