Accelerated Bible Translation and the Critical Thinking Gap

The effort to translate the Bible into the world’s smaller languages has accelerated remarkably in the last twenty years. In addition to the work of Bible agencies, there have been a number of translation efforts, disconnected to Bible agency efforts, conducted by churches or general mission agencies. These efforts are gaining traction because of a general rising interest in Bible translation ministry.

Bible translation has historically been a painstaking, laborious process. Recent efforts to accelerate the process have included rapidly engaging a larger workforce recruited from the church at large and developing fast-track, readily available training materials to equip that workforce. While well-intentioned, these efforts overlook a critical factor which comprises their effectiveness: limited critical thinking skills.

In many of the countries with concentrated Bible translation need, the education system focuses primarily on attendance and rote learning rather than the development of problem-solving, critical thinking skills. Yet these skills are absolutely essential to the performance of various stages of the translation task. When attempts to accelerate the translation process implicitly rely on the presence of critical thinking skills which are severely limited, the resulting translations tend to be overly literal and miss the mark of serving their intended audiences well.

This paper reviews some approaches to accelerating Bible translation which mistakenly depend on critical thinking skills. The paper will further identify fruitful methodologies to accelerate Bible translation which have been largely overlooked.