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A Bible You Can Relate To
Wed, October 24, 2012
Many Belizeans learn kriol as their first language - but do they pray in kriol? And for those who do, does God understand?

Those are questions of divinity - that no investigative report could ever hope to answer.

But, the folks at the National Kriol Council say they know that kriol is accepted at the Heavenly Headquarters in the sky.

That's why they're translating the bible. We got chapter and verse on that story today:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

Ian Guttierrez
"Ahn like how the high priest ihself, we inna lot ah ways, ih cud deal with dehn wan inna wah gentle way, when dehn mek mistake ahn noh know weh dehn di do.'

That is Ian Gutierrez reading from the kriol translation Chapter 4 in the Book of Hebrews. It is part of the National Kriol Council's monumental effort to render the New Testament in both in written and spoken Kriol.

Guttierrez reads from this screen in front of him - which is carefully proofed by the translators - who are watching the same text - and faithfully captured on hard drive by these technicians from a group called Faith Comes By Hearing - which has recorded audio bibles in 650 languages worldwide.

Their technical setup is mobile and global:

Nicholas Okereke - Faith Comes By Hearing, Nigeria
"We have effective equipment set up, which allows us to do this in such a high quality way, but at the same time have portable equipment."

They will compile thousands of audio files - as many as nine thousand in a marathon six weeks of recording working ten hours a day.

But they say the product that they will have in the end is their reward:

Mark Adu-Danso - Faith Comes By Hearing
"The impact of what we are doing is so great, that the Belizean will really benefit from this. We are doing this because we've seen that people don't like reading, and people are lazy readers. We are doing this so that people can hear the Word of God in their mother tongue."

The mother tongue - or what these translators call heart language bridges an important divide between prayerful worship and profound understanding:

Nicholas Okereke
"Before God, all languages are equal. All people and all forms of speech, none of them is above, greater, or better than the other. The Lord, God, does not have any inferiority or superiority complex with regards to the tongues that we speak, and with which we approach him."

Myrna Manzanares - Recording Coordinator
"When you read certain things in Kriol, we put it down to how we see it. It's like if a said, 'The boy in the bible when the house fell down.' We'd say, 'Ih gaan brigidim buuf!' You could understand that, it fell down hard. So, the importance of the meaning of the Bible comes to life in a way that you can understand it more."

Silvaana Udz - Secretary, Belize Kriol Project
"It's the meaning, Jules. It's not so much that you won't understand, but now you get the meaning and the sense of it in your heart."

Nicholas Okereke
"He talks to them in their own heart languages, and that is the main reason why the scriptures must also be taken into the heart languages of people, the languages in which they think and meditate, the languages in which they feel the deepest emotions in their hearts. These are the languages in which God wants to communicate his word. The Word of God is not a prisoner to a particular language."

In fact, the English language Bible that we know so well is from a mix of Greek Hebrew and Latin sources.

Yvette Herrera - Lead Kriol Translator/Audio Bible Proofreader
"Why King James made them translate it to that is because the lower people never understood the high language. So, he said, No, you know what, people have to get the Word of God in their language. So, what we call the King James version, which people think is so holy was the 'Kriol' of the day. It's like he said, God doesn't have respect for one language over the next. He just wants to get the message to all of us."

Yvette Herrera worked on the bible translation for 20 years:

Yvette Herrera
"For a long time, when I got my quiet time with God, I spoke to him in Kriol, because he understands the language. That's me; he loves me for me - my language and everything else. So, when they came with scriptures, I was on it. So, it's from then that I was with it."

She quoted passages to show how she added the Kriol flavor and meaning to the scriptures:

Yvette Herrera
"When they were crucifying Jesus, the King James Version would have said, 'They put a robe on him and mocked him.' If I tell a 5 year-old child that, they hear something about it. But if I tell him, 'Dehn tek Jesus ahn put wahn lang gown pan ah, ahn staat to tek ah mek popishow,' he understands and grasps that quickly."

Or this passage from the book of Galatian:

Yvette Herrera
"'Oh, Thou foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched thee - alright - Unu piple frahn Galatia, dah how unnu so stchupid, dah same like somebaddie obeah unnu.' You see, because which child will understand bewitched?"

Jules Vasquez
"But how will you get 'obeah' in the Bible?"

Yvette Herrera
"Because when you bewitch somebody, you put a spell on them."

And if you think it may have flavor but lacks in fire, this is Terry Gordon reading from the book of Romans:

Terry Gordon
"Deh do all kaihna dutty ting wid one anotha body, ting weh shoulda mek deh shame. Instead ah deh believe the truth bout God, deh people believe lone lie."

And it's not only a local effort, all translations were cross-checked with expert Bible translators.

Yvette Herrera
"Experts came in from outside, and consultants where, if they didn't give us a pass on what we wrote - we are the initial translators - they know the full greek and other things - we can't put it out there."

Silvaana Udz
"You see, you are speaking to people in a way that they feel it, It's not that we don't understand 'God is good' in English, but, 'God good good good.' I mean I get goosebumps and everything."

But, though the academics have scoured the texts for what they call exegetical soundness, they assure us, nothing was lost in translation.

Silvaana Udz
"You see, you are speaking to people in a way that they feel it, It's not that we don't understand 'God is good' in English, but, 'God good good good.' I mean I get goosebumps and everything."

The audio bible has a cast of big names providing voiceovers. Terry Gordon is the voice of the Apostle Paul - which accounts for 27% of the New Testament.

Anglican Bishop Phillip Wright is the voice of Old Testament quotes that appears in the New Testament.

Pastor Luis wade is the voice of Jesus...and in a role he's probably always wanted, Rene Villanueva is the voice of God.

The official launch of the text and audio books will be held in 2013 at the St. John's Cathedral. It will also be available free on the internet.

The Bible has been translated into two thousand of the world's 6.909 languages.


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