Troy Manning

The Lord really helped me as I preached my sermon on forgiveness last week in Philadelphia, and He kept me safe all the way back to Grand Rapids.  As soon as I got back, I had lunch and then jumped into consulting.  We were able to finish the rest of Ruth and all of the Song of Solomon, and we have begun Genesis.  It’s been a very busy week as we are in the workshop all day, but then I have to take care of personal matters in the evenings.  I’m trying to keep up with other issues amongst the consultants while also taking care of deputation matters.  We spent another 5 hours working this morning, but then I had to spend another hour and a half getting ready for Monday.  I’ve finally been able to work through all of the back-translations I’ve received.  But we may even get into material for which I don’t have back-translations.  If we have time, we will also work on Psalms 1-5. 

Here’s what we’ve been doing in this workshop.  I should be with what we do before the workshop.  We consultants work through the passages by studying the Hebrew and then examining the translation through the back-translation (a translation of the Creole translation).  Then at the workshop, we begin by having Daniel Telfort (the translator) give an oral back-translation of his own translation.  This lets us see if the written back-translation isn’t exactly accurate.  As he’s reading, we are following along in the Hebrew.  When he has finished, I ask questions about specific issues that I’ve already noted to determine his understanding of the Hebrew text and of how he translated it into Creole.  If the Hebrew text can be taken a few different ways, I might present the issue by asking him to choose between the options.  I want to determine if he understands the Hebrew text first.  Then I want to understand how the Creole can best express that.  Sometimes it takes a great deal of work to stay close to the Hebrew words while also clearly expressing the meaning in Creole. 

When I have finished asking my questions, Dr. Bernard asks his questions about the Hebrew and/or Creole.  He often uses his questions to teach both Daniel and me (since I’m being mentored to become a senior consultant).  Often, we get into pretty in-depth discussions amongst the three of us as we seek to arrive at the best translation.  As I said in my Briefings article (current issue), the discussions can go on for almost an hour for just a few words.  If we cannot arrive at a translation that we are comfortable with, we give Daniel our proposition and have him take it back to his translation team in Haiti. 

Here are some issues that we confronted in our work this week:

1. In the OT, the word for ‘heavens’ can mean ‘firmament’, ‘sky’, or ‘the place where God dwells.’  The Creole work ‘syel’ (pronounced like the French ‘ciel’) comprehends all levels but cannot refer to one in distinction from another.  So Genesis 1:1 can’t have the plural form because it sounds absurd in Creole.  Also, when Genesis 1 speaks about the birds flying in the sky, it cannot distinguish that from the firmament where the stars are.
2. In Genesis 1:14, Moses writes about the creation of ‘lights’ in the expanse of the heavens.  The plural of the Creole word (limyè) refers to a plurality of lamps.  Obviously, this is not the referent in Gen. 1.  But we wanted to distinguish the reference to light here from the reference earlier in Gen. 1.  We decided to translate it as ‘sources of light.’
3. In Genesis 3:7, it says that the couple ‘sewed’ fig leaves together to cover themselves.  The Creole word for ‘sewed’ is ‘coud’, but it implies the modern-day instruments used for sewing.  Obviously, we cannot be anachronistic and put sewing needles into Adam’s and Eve’s hands.  We thought about using a more general word like ‘joined,’ but in the end we decided to let Daniel work on this with his stylists.
4. Lest I give the impression that Creole is always deficient, I must point out one of its grammatical structures that surpasses English.  In Creole the definite article occurs after the noun, and it occurs after all modifiers of the noun.  So when there are complicated modifiers added to a noun, Creole has a nice way of making it clear that everything goes together. 

The workshop ends on Tuesday, so pray we accomplish much.  We are very thankful that we are going faster than hour pace at the first workshop in Dec (where we consulted on 5.5 chapters).