“I would have those words translated into all languages... I long for the plowboy to sing them to himself as he follows the plow, the weaver to hum them to the tune of his shuttle, the traveler to beguile with them the dullness of his journey..." —Desiderius Erasmus
Word of God
“Our mother tongue is the language in which God speaks to each of us. He does not speak in a sacred language, but in the ordinary language, so that we may hear him and realize that this gospel is about us and that we have been invited to join a company drawn from every people, tribe, tongue,...
“One key feature through the whole story of the Bible is the actual production of the Bible. God did not just act through history, he inspired the story to be written down so that future generations could learn and understand what was going on.” —Eddie Arthur
“Translation is a powerful process. It can uncover dimensions of a message which have not been recognized in quite the same way in previous translation processes.” —Darrell Gruder
"What translators rather dryly refer to as looking for key terms is in fact an exciting theological reflection on God’s revelation to us. Things which are unclear or opaque in one language or culture become crystal clear when expressed in another." —Eddie Arthur
"The Bible addresses issues that missionaries don’t. People in different situations see things in the Bible that others miss. Missionaries come with a whole load of cultural baggage and they will never be able to see the Bible in the way that people from a very different culture will. By making...
"One of the great blessings of being involved in Bible translation is that you get to wrestle with expressing God’s word in other languages and as you do, you begin to see things clearly that were, up till that point, somewhat opaque." —Eddie Arthur
"The Christian approach to translatability strikes at the heart of such Gnostic tendencies, first by contending that the greatest and most profound religious truths are compatible with everyday language, and second, by targeting ordinary men and women as worthy bearers of the religious message...
“If we believe that God is the Creator and Lord of history, of peoples, languages and cultures, then we must believe that his Word is not only true, but also promotes justice, liberating the weak and oppressed, and is communicable to the heart of every person, addressed to every human being.” —...
"The way in which God pulled the Bible together is altogether remarkable. He could have written the words himself, or he could have given us a definitive list of what to include and what not to include. Instead, the relational God embarked on a process that took over a thousand years; to work...