The translation office in Kitchener worked with Anglican
Church leaders from the Diocese of the Arctic for the past
30 years to produce the Inuktitut Bible. The New Testament
translation, started in 1978 and finished in 1991, is now in its
fifth printing. The full Bible, including the recently finished
Old Testament, was dedicated in Nunavut earlier this year.
“It’s taken so long because the translators are busy
parish priests,” says Hart Wiens, CBS director of Scripture
translations. “Only a month or two out of the year were
devoted to the translation work itself.”
Wiens and his team help make sure translations meet
CBS standards by providing tools and resources. “We check
the final result to see if the translation was communicating
what was intended,” says Wiens. With the Inuktitut Bible,
translators used a “functional equivalence” model which,
instead of a literal translation, passed on the meaning of the
scripture passage by incorporating native culture and idiom.
Wiens says the tribal nature of the Old Testament narrative fit the Inuit culture. But sometimes that fit was a challenge. He recalls trying to translate 2 Samuel 10: 10, which
talked about King David’s two sons Joab and Abishai.
“In Inuktitut there’s no generic word for brother. It’s
either ‘older brother’ or ‘younger brother.’ We needed to
know which term to use.”
A call to Kitchener and a check through commentaries and
other resources revealed Abishai was older. “This particular
challenge had to do with the nature of their language,” says
Wiens. “We couldn’t produce an exact form from the original.”
Wiens says there was “lots of relief and celebration” at
the dedication ceremony. “I didn’t feel
it as intensely as the translators them-
selves. Retired Anglican bishop Benjamin
Arreak said it felt like a weight was lifted
from his shoulders,” says Wiens.
With the Hakka translation – a language spoken by four million people in
Taiwan – the CBS played a smaller role,
but the project demonstrates how work
the CBS has done on Bible translation
benefits other organizations. After nearly 30 years of work by a Bible society, two
denominations and an evangelical association, the Hakka Bible was dedicated
and distributed during the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan’s
general assembly this past spring.
“We had minimal involvement in the translation,” says
Wiens, noting translation tools created in Kitchener played
a key part in the translation. “The role we played is a great
example of the kind of contribution we’re able to make for
many Bible projects around the world.”
Wiens’ predecessor, Harold Fehderau, was one of the
first translation officers to begin researching how to use
computers to translate the Bible. In 1981 he bought a
$20,000 computer and was appointed to head a group of
early adopters of computers in Bible translation.
Wiens says Fehderau’s efforts formed the basis of the
translation and typesetting software used for the Hakka
translation. He also said Paul McLean, the Presbyterian
Church in Canada lead in the project, was connected to the
CBS, and asked it for help distributing the new translation. FT
–Robert White
Hakka and Inuktitut Added to List of Bible Translations
benjamin Arreak
PHOTO: SuE CARELESS
from an average of 32 in the first year to just
over 50 today. For a church with an average
attendance of 170, reaching 50 new people
has been “awesome,” says Paulsen.
She also used
her experience with Messy Church as the
basis for her doctor of ministry thesis, un-
covering three key benefits: parents learn
as much about the Bible as the children,
families are praying together more, and
parents have begun talking
to their children about God more.
people with opinions,” she says. “The characters are very hu-
man and fallible, like we are.”
Although Meyer writes from a Christian worldview, she be-
lieves her first job as an author “is to write a good book, one that
people will enjoy reading.” She has earned numerous awards for
her work, including Romance Book of the Year at the 2011 Ca-
nadian Christian Writing Awards for the novel Jasmine, part of a new book series called The Group. These stories are centred on a group of seven young people who meet each week in a sup- port group setting. Each book explores one character’s story, a particular challenge or topic, and a step in the healing journey. The series is aimed at older teen ( 13+) and adult readers. Aside from her writing, Dorene Meyer is also a part-time instructor at university College of the North and runs her own publishing company, Goldrock Press. She created the company
not only to facilitate distributing her own books, but also to
publish and promote northern writers. Goldrock’s publications
include books by individual writers as well as ten anthologies, a
book form she encourages people to read as a way of discovering
the diversity of talented northern and First Nations writers. FT
–Mary Lou Harrison
