The Bean Family
Bean's Talk November 2013
Download the PDF of the November 2013 Beans Talk with photos here.
Everyday translation problems
Every day Mark tells me about interesting and seemingly unsolvable translation problems. One morning I realized I should plan ahead and start a Beans’talk, so I asked him what he was working on. Answer: revising 2 Corinthians chapter 9.
In that chapter Paul encourages the believers to be generous in their collection for Christians in Jerusalem. He concludes in verse 15 by giving thank to God for his gift to us:
Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!
God’s gift to us refers to his mercy and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Referring to God’s gift serves as rich motivation for the believers to be generous in giving.
But how can we talk about God’s gift in Quechua? There is no good word for gift that we could use. Could we use a verb, like “Thanks be to God for giving us his Son?” No, in Quechua God didn’t give his Son; he sent his Son.
So, what to do? There is no good solution on the horizon yet. The current translation works well as a statement of praise, but it is disconnected from the idea of giving.
I’m glad Mark has two weeks off to take a break from these everyday tear-your-hair-out kind of problems. (You’ve noticed there isn’t much left on the top of his head!)
Bible translation conference
Last week we were in Dallas for the biennial Bible translation conference. Four hundred people working in Bible translation from sixty different countries met together to share ideas of how to translate well. Mark gave a presentation of how he works as a team with Quechua speakers to translate five complete Bibles. He was encouraged to hear many positive and enthusiastic comments.
Taking a much needed break
After the conference we are taking two weeks to be with family. Saturday was our youngest grandson Ender’s first birthday. Most of our family was together in Colorado Springs to help him celebrate (Ernie & family lives there and Eric is in Denver). We’ll let photos do a lot of the communicating for us this time.
Praises and Prayer Requests
? Praise: for this opportunity to be on-hand parents and grandparents. We’ve been soaking it up! One morning we even had snow. Praise for the opportunity to be with Mom Bean the last week of October.
? We’ll be back in Huanuco on Sunday, November 2nd. The very next Saturday we take off for another translation workshop over in the neighboring state. PRAY that everyone will make it safely to the workshop on time, which will run from November 11 through the 29th.
? Pray: for progress during the November translation workshop. Our goals are to do final revision of John chapter 17 to the end of the book, Matthew chapters 1 through 23 and to review selec-tions from Hosea, Micah, Habakkuk, Zechariah, Proverbs and Psalms.
? Pray: for inspiration to solve translation problems like the one mentioned above.
So, so thankful for this visit with family!
Patti
