translating the Word of God

This article deals with the issue of translation of the Bible, a potentially sensitive text to translate into various, obscure languages. According to this article, Jon Riding and his extensive team of scientists, linguists, and theologians at Bible society are developing a revolutionary technology called Paratext which will make the process of Biblical translation much more efficient.

Currently, translating the Bible into a new language is a laborious task that can take anywhere between 10 to 20 years. In order to uphold the authenticity of the original texts, the Bible can only be translated from Greek or Hebrew, and must be re-translated into the original language to cross-check for any potential discrepancies. As this task is incredibly time-consuming, the Bible is virtually unknown to speakers of thousands of languages around the world.

Apparently, this new software will change all that. Paratext won't necessarily translate giant chunks of text into a desired language, like Google Translate does, but will rather serve as an important tool for human translators to conduct their work much more effectively and efficiently.

In class, we've discussed the huge implications of possible mistranslations (ex the formation of divine conception through language), and this new technology may greatly increase the possibility of minute mistranslations with great disparities in meaning. Although this article doesn't describe the machinations of this new software in depth, one can expect opposition to such a controversial use of technology. But the implications of Paratext are even more significant. Perhaps this is the key to allowing everyone on Earth access to the Bible, a new religion, and an entirely new take on life.