I’ve been spending many hours preparing for the upcoming workshop in Togo, West Africa. I found out that I didn’t need to worry about the Gospel of Mark, so I moved to Titus. I’ve finished Titus and 1 Peter, and am now working on 2 Peter. It was quite distressing when I first begin checking the back-translation in the epistles. I was getting into quite a groove as I worked through Mark, since narrative usually doesn’t have complex sentence structures. But when I looked at the first few verses of Titus, I was quickly brought to a snail’s pace. Paul’s introductions are notoriously condensed and complex in Greek, but Kabiyé cannot always match the same structure. Here’s a literal translation of the first three verses:
Paul, a bond-servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to (the) faith of the elect of God and (the) knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, 2 in (the) hope of eternal life, which the trustworthy God promised before eternal times, 3 but at the proper time manifested, (even) His word, in (the) proclamation with which I was entrusted according to (the) commandment of God our Savior,
Knowing how to translate this sentence into a different language becomes extremely difficult when that language doesn’t have the same prepositions and nouns as Greek does, which appears to be the case with Kabiyé. When you lack these grammatical items, you have to restructure the phrases into finite sentences. But that means you have to answer many questions as you do the restructuring. How do you understand “according to the fact of the elect of God”? What’s the connection to “the knowledge of the truth”? In what way is this truth “according to godliness”? Or does this phrase connect to knowledge? Or does it connect to faith and knowledge? Or does it connect to all three? How should we understand “in the hope of eternal life” and its relation to v. 1? And the list could go on…
I’m hoping that we can maintain some of the ambiguities in this sentence, since good translation doesn’t seek to remove these ambiguities. But since I don’t know the options in Kabiyé, I need to be prepared for anything and then work through the possibilities with the translator. Please pray for wisdom as I prepare and then wisdom as I work with the translator in French. Again, this will be my first time to work with a translator by myself and my first time consulting in French. His assistant will also be present, and maybe a missionary or two.
Why go through such work to get the Scriptures into Kabiyé? Why not just teach them French? Usually this isn’t possible since many don’t speak French often enough to know the language well. But they speak their own heart language, so they know it well. Therefore, they can connect to God best through that language.
We are nearing the completion of this NT translation, which will be accessible to at least 520,000-700,000 people, depending on which website you believe. Kabiyé is one of two national languages in Togo, and it is the smaller one being spoken in the north. Published material in Kabiyé includes magazines, newspapers, a dictionary, and a grammar. According to Ethnologue, a book on health and one on culture/folklore have also been published. Radio program and TV are also done in Kabiyé. Another Bible society has completed the entire Bible, but apparently the conservative churches reject it for various reasons.
Please pray for safety as I travel. I leave on July 14 from the US. I will arrive in Lomé, Togo, late in the night on July 15. On July 16 I’ll ride by van up to northern Togo, which will take 6-8 hours. Each morning I will be picked up at a guest house and ride by motorcycle to the workshop.
Please pray also as I prepare messages and devotionals for preaching in French. And pray that I would be able to strengthen the team as they continue their work in Togo.
Next week I’ll be at BMM’s annual family conference, so please pray for safety as I travel to Cleveland, OH, for that, and pray for the Lord to encourage and challenge me as I attend the various workshops and rub shoulders with other missionaries. Pray that I would be an encouragement as well.
