Virtual Scripture checking (Jennings)

 

A translation consultant (back left) and new translation team in Isiro

Back in March of this year, I was supposed to travel to Isiro for a consulting session with a new translation team on their first translated Scripture portion, Genesis 37-50, the story of Joseph. New teams often start with one of the Gospels. But after much discussion, this group decided to start with Genesis, to give their community a fuller background to God's story before Jesus's birth. They started with chapters 37-50 because it is narrative (mostly), which is easier to translate than more theological passages, such as the beginning of Genesis. Better to start with easier passages first, to hone translation skills, and to create something interesting people will want to read or listen to as their first experience of Scripture in their mother tongue.

But in March it became clear that the pandemic was reaching DRC, and all work travel was canceled. We put off the consulting session indefinitely, and the translation team started working on other things. They also needed to do more work on their end before I could start preparing, so the delay was actually appropriate in any case. 

At the end of May, I traveled to the U.S. for my 6-month cancer check (all clear, thank you, Lord!). Meanwhile, borders closed in Africa, and I wasn't able to return to DRC all summer. I kept in touch with the translation director, and we decided to do the consulting session virtually, rather than put it off indefinitely. By July, the team was ready for me to start preparing. So here is how it went. It was a fairly typical consulting session... except that we were on different continents. :) 

How a "normal", in-person consulting session unfolds: After a translation team finishes translating a Scripture portion, they meet as a team to talk through the passage among themselves and make changes as needed. We use Paratext, a specialized Bible translation software. The team makes a French interlinear gloss of their translation, as well as a free backtranslation (someone takes their translation and translates that into French). The interlinear and the backtranslation help me understand their translation somewhat, even though I don't know their language. Then I get to work. I look at various French versions and exegetical helps, compare them to their translation, and I insert comments and questions to them in Paratext. They answer my questions, make changes as needed, and then we meet for a face-to-face consulting session. 

What a typical consulting session looks like: Normally, in a consultant session you have: 1) the translation team, 2) an oral back-translator, who listens to the translation and repeats back in French what they have understood, 3) a consultant, and 4) a consultant-in-training. Consulting sessions serve several purposes: 1) to check the translation Scripture portion and approve it for publication and recording; 2) to provide informal training and encouragement for translators, 3) to provide experience for consultants-in-training who are working toward being approved as full consultants. We go through the chapters verse by verse, checking for accuracy (nothing left out, nothing added), clarity and naturalness. We also talk about the style of translation that would be most acceptable to the local churches. If their translation sounds too different from the French, Swahili or Lingala versions churches are used to, they might not accept it as a legitimate version of Scripture.

For this session, we decided to meet online for 3 weeks, from 6-10 AM Alabama time (1-5 PM in Congo). We took 10-minute breaks each hour. We took time at the beginning to greet everyone, and time for prayer requests and prayer at the end. 

On the first day, we used Zoom, but we quickly changed to WhatsApp, audio only, because of the weak connection. I was very pleasantly surprised at how well it worked. The used the director's phone on speaker, setting it on the table so I could hear everyone. 

They brought in a lawyer from their community, a woman, to do the oral back-translation. She did an excellent job. At the end of the 3 weeks, she said that the experiencing of listening to the Joseph story in her language and translating it into French - having to wrestle with the meaning and put it into her own words - had deepened her understanding of it. She was encouraged by this and is looking forward to preaching on what she learned during the session.

A Congolese consultant-in-training, who directed the New Testament translation in his own language, led the discussion on even-numbered chapters, and I led on odd-numbered chapters. He had prepared well ahead of time. It was helpful to share the work, and it gave me a chance to see how he worked with the team. I was impressed with how thorough and respectful he was.

We were mostly concentrated on the details of the verses. But we did stop back to marvel at the extraordinary story of Joseph: how his father favored him, how the brothers were so terribly jealous, how Joseph went from slavery and prison to the highest place in the Pharaoh's palace, and how he forgave his brothers (...after making them sweat first). Most of all, we marveled at how God can use the most evil of circumstances and bring good out of them. 

But Joseph replied, “Don't be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. No, don't be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children.” So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them. Genesis 50:19-21 (NLT)

Now that the chapters have been consultant-checked, the team will work on it with a committee from their community, and they will test it to be sure it's clearly understood. Then they can record it to be distributed to radio stations, churches, etc. To publish it in paper form, more will be needed: they'll have to check the spelling and formatting, choose illustrations, write captions and insert them, and go through other pre-typesetting checks. There wasn't time for that during this session, but there will be time to do it later, before it's published as a booklet or together with the rest of Genesis.

It had been nearly two years since I last worked with a team on a consultant check. It was exhausting to get up so early every day, and I did not get proper sleep. But it reminded me how much I love doing this work. Most of all, I think it was a help and encouragement to this new team, who had been sitting on this translation for months without consultant input. I am so grateful that we were able to have this virtual session together.

I have tickets to fly back to Congo on September 1. We are all wondering what the future will look like and when it will be able to safely meet together again. But we know that the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (and us all) is with us no matter what.