Cooperative Missions Run by Different Denominations

[Neto]

If WBT’s press releases and office workers and then journalists who report on that are so unreliable that they will misquote one of their translators…

… should we trust their Bible translations?

It seems very unlikely that someone at MNN just completely made all that up although I suppose it’s possible. But at some point, we can’t just doubt a source because we don’t like what it says.

Ask Boot to explain the rigorous process for translation checking in WBT. I have already attempted to explain it, from my point of view as a Bible translator. He is actively involved in the other end of the work, from the consultant perspective. No newspaper or even book publisher examines their material to the depth that WBT does for Scripture translations. In the past there were errors in printed Bible texts (like the well-known "sinners' Bible", that said "Thou shalt commit adultery"), but that was centuries ago, and it is now possible to much more carefully verify the text than it was then, because that was a typesetter error, not an error in the actual text.

The example I gave of being misquoted myself - that was probably a low-level staff writer in the WBT periodical staff that wrote the article about our airstrip project. (It was basically a promotion of the project to get financial support to help pay for the airstrip construction.) Communication was much slower back then in 1986, and even more so for international mail, Port Velho, Rondonia, Brazil to Dallas Texas. There would have been time constraints, needing to get it ready to meet a publication deadline. In contrast, even after a translation is completed, it still takes many months, or maybe more than a year to complete all of the checking & verification process.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Does anyone have access to a Froschauer Bible ? I would be curious what word was used there.

From an online source (1531), Matthew 5:3:



"Saelig sind die da geystlich arm sind, dañ das him-melreych ist (ih)r."

The Lutherbibel (1545) would say:

"Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr."

These appear to be semantically identical.

Wherever did you find this? I really can’t read the Fraktur here, without considerable effort, and my German is abysmal. This blows up my “working theory “ of how the “Old Order” views came to be.

[Judas Maccabeus]

If WBT’s press releases and office workers and then journalists who report on that are so unreliable that they will misquote one of their translators…

… should we trust their Bible translations?

It seems very unlikely that someone at MNN just completely made all that up although I suppose it’s possible. But at some point, we can’t just doubt a source because we don’t like what it says.

Ask Boot to explain the rigorous process for translation checking in WBT. I have already attempted to explain it, from my point of view as a Bible translator. He is actively involved in the other end of the work, from the consultant perspective. No newspaper or even book publisher examines their material to the depth that WBT does for Scripture translations. In the past there were errors in printed Bible texts (like the well-known "sinners' Bible", that said "Thou shalt commit adultery"), but that was centuries ago, and it is now possible to much more carefully verify the text than it was then, because that was a typesetter error, not an error in the actual text.

The example I gave of being misquoted myself - that was probably a low-level staff writer in the WBT periodical staff that wrote the article about our airstrip project. (It was basically a promotion of the project to get financial support to help pay for the airstrip construction.) Communication was much slower back then in 1986, and even more so for international mail, Port Velho, Rondonia, Brazil to Dallas Texas. There would have been time constraints, needing to get it ready to meet a publication deadline. In contrast, even after a translation is completed, it still takes many months, or maybe more than a year to complete all of the checking & verification process.

Was that translated by WBT or Wycliffe Associates? I am sure you know the difference.

[Neto]

If WBT’s press releases and office workers and then journalists who report on that are so unreliable that they will misquote one of their translators…

… should we trust their Bible translations?

It seems very unlikely that someone at MNN just completely made all that up although I suppose it’s possible. But at some point, we can’t just doubt a source because we don’t like what it says.

Ask Boot to explain the rigorous process for translation checking in WBT. I have already attempted to explain it, from my point of view as a Bible translator. He is actively involved in the other end of the work, from the consultant perspective. No newspaper or even book publisher examines their material to the depth that WBT does for Scripture translations. In the past there were errors in printed Bible texts (like the well-known "sinners' Bible", that said "Thou shalt commit adultery"), but that was centuries ago, and it is now possible to much more carefully verify the text than it was then, because that was a typesetter error, not an error in the actual text.

The example I gave of being misquoted myself - that was probably a low-level staff writer in the WBT periodical staff that wrote the article about our airstrip project. (It was basically a promotion of the project to get financial support to help pay for the airstrip construction.) Communication was much slower back then in 1986, and even more so for international mail, Port Velho, Rondonia, Brazil to Dallas Texas. There would have been time constraints, needing to get it ready to meet a publication deadline. In contrast, even after a translation is completed, it still takes many months, or maybe more than a year to complete all of the checking & verification process.

Was that translated by WBT or Wycliffe Associates? I am sure you know the difference.

WA only ran off the rails in more recent years. They used to be a very good and helpful support agency for construction projects and other special needs. We had a general contractor & team come help us put up a new translation center on our mission center near Porto Velho, Rondonia, and we also personally had a family come help build a small school house in the village to have a place for our children to work where their chair would not be taken by one of the Banawa if they just got up to get a drink of water or something. (That family actually funded that project.)

[ken_sylvania]

I do not know German, either one of the German dialects or languages involved, so I do not have an opinion regarding the meaning of the words concerned.

But I do know Hank, and he is not only a native speaker of PA German, but is also a trained linguist. He & his wife Ruth did a translation for an aboriginal group, and worked on his own language in his spare time, on furloughs. Then after they finished the work in Australia, he worked full-time on the translation work here. But I know neither High German nor PA German well enough to make any response on what he is quoted here as having said.

I don't know who is quoted as saying that "Amish church leaders remain suspicious of the Pennsylvania Dutch Bible", but as I know from talking with him, he worked with a translation committee made up of Amishmen, so I doubt if that is true of all, or even most, Amish Bishops and ministers. It is also true, however, that because of the nature of my business, I have very little contact with Dan church people, or Tobe Amish, and certainly not Swartzentrubers. (In the past, when I went to nearly every Mt Hope machinery auction, I often talked with Swartzentrubers, and would sometimes run into one of them later somewhere else, & they are always friendly. More like Okies that anyone else I ever meet in this area.)

Hank is quoted in this press release. Whether the writer quoted him accurately or not I wouldn't know.
https://www.mnnonline.org/news/amish-need-scripture/
I am seriously skeptical of any claim that confusion about the Beatitudes is the cause of any kind of a "works religion" among the Amish. I also have deep reservations about any kind of "Christianity" that thinks the Beatitudes are some kind of optional exercise "for additional credit."

From what I have seen here (I have no other sources), Hank never said obedience to the injunctions of Jesus in that passage are "optional". The person who quoted him MAY have put words in his mouth - that happens, as I illustrated. And it is not just the secular media who does this sort of dishonest journalism. That's why I included the personal story of WBT's on false reporting "on my behalf". But let's not put words in Hank's mouth here, either.

I'm not saying that obedience to these commands (or any others in Scripture) are "optional", or "not essential". But it is an affront to both the Scripture AND God's grace through Jesus Christ, to imply that salvation is to be attributed to our personal obedience. Instead, the Scripture teaches that the one who believes WILL obey. It is not "an additional requirement" - it is a natural and automatic result of true belief. The question here is not whether Hank, or anyone else thinks that obedience is or is not a Christian response to God's grace, the question is "Do some Amish (or any of us, for that matter) think that we somehow EARN salvation, or DESERVE the continuance of it?" In Jesus' own words, His response to those who think they are earning their status as children of God is clear: "I never knew you."

Maybe I missed the link to the article earlier in this discussion, but thanks for including that. I just now read it. Whether I ever saw it before I cannot say, since it is from nearly 10 years ago. I do not think I've ever heard of Mission Network News before, but I DO forget a lot. I looked at their main page, and it is not an agency of WBT, and the author/editor of the piece does not provide any source document information. So it's already second-hand. The section title "Going Amish" is in itself not accurate. Hank grew up Amish, but neither he nor his wife "went Amish" in order to do this translation project. He DOES include himself in the statement as quoted in this article, where he is reported as having said “We do not understand High German very well,” Hank explains. “Our language is not that close to High German.”

I'm not here to pass judgment on Hank, certainly not based solely on quotes in a press release that may or may not be accurate.

[ken_sylvania]

Does anyone have access to a Froschauer Bible ? I would be curious what word was used there.

From an online source (1531), Matthew 5:3:



"Saelig sind die da geystlich arm sind, dañ das him-melreych ist (ih)r."

The Lutherbibel (1545) would say:

"Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr."

These appear to be semantically identical.

Wherever did you find this? I really can’t read the Fraktur here, without considerable effort, and my German is abysmal. This blows up my “working theory “ of how the “Old Order” views came to be.

Can you expound a bit further for the benefit of us poor mortals who cannot understand German or Dutch and who are curious about which "Old Order" views you are referring to?

[Josh]

Wherever did you find this? I really can’t read the Fraktur here, without considerable effort, and my German is abysmal. This blows up my “working theory “ of how the “Old Order” views came to be.

I searched for "Froescher Bible online" and the first link was to the Wikipedia page. (Note, I tend to use Bing Copilot these days to search for things like that, instead of Google.) The Wikipedia page had links to scanned in pages of the Froescher Bibles. I had to manually flip through it until I could find Matthew, then flip through until I found the chapter heading for chapter 5, written in Roman numerals (I couldn't really read a capital "V" in Fraktur but I could read "III", "IIII", etc.)

Lowercase Fraktur isn't too hard to read - remember that the sharp s looks like an f, and that they have funny marks for double letters, like an nn written as ñ, or oe / ae written as o or a with a tiny e over top of it. (Maybe I had that backwards?) The uppercase letters, well, I have to consult a chart for basically every one of them...

[Josh]

"Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr."

Wherever did you find this? I really can’t read the Fraktur here, without considerable effort, and my German is abysmal. This blows up my “working theory “ of how the “Old Order” views came to be.

Can you expound a bit further for the benefit of us poor mortals who cannot understand German or Dutch and who are curious about which "Old Order" views you are referring to?
[/quote]

I'm not a speaker of German but the phrase above is a very easy one to translate.

"Blessed are, they who are spiritually poor; for the kingdom of Heaven is [theirs]."

KJV:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

NIV:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

NET:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them."

Upon a further review of the Froescher Bible, it seems extremely similar to the Lutherbibel.

[Neto]

Does anyone have access to a Froschauer Bible ? I would be curious what word was used there.

From an online source (1531), Matthew 5:3:



"Saelig sind die da geystlich arm sind, dañ das him-melreych ist (ih)r."

The Lutherbibel (1545) would say:

"Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr."

These appear to be semantically identical.

Wherever did you find this? I really can’t read the Fraktur here, without considerable effort, and my German is abysmal. This blows up my “working theory “ of how the “Old Order” views came to be.

Here is is out of the Bible program the Word, which does not use the Fractur font. (Luther 1545) (The above shows through verse 6.)

3 Selig sind, die da geistlich arm sind; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr.
4 Selig sind, die da Leid tragen; denn sie sollen getröstet werden.
5 Selig sind die Sanftmütigen; denn sie werden das Erdreich besitzen.
6 Selig sind, die da hungert und dürstet nach der Gerechtigkeit; denn sie sollen satt werden.
7 Selig sind die Barmherzigen; denn sie werden Barmherzigkeit erlangen.
8 Selig sind, die reines Herzens sind; denn sie werden Gott schauen.
9 Selig sind die Friedfertigen; denn sie werden Gottes Kinder heißen.
10 Selig sind, die um Gerechtigkeit willen verfolgt werden; denn das Himmelreich ist ihr.
11 Selig seid ihr, wenn euch die Menschen um meinetwillen schmähen und verfolgen und reden allerlei Übles wider euch, so sie daran lügen. 12 Seid fröhlich und getrost, es wird euch im Himmel wohl belohnt werden! Denn also haben sie verfolget die Propheten, die vor euch gewesen sind.

[Josh]

The page I pasted a picture of isn't from a Lutherbibel but is from the earlier Froescher Bible (which I don't really know anything about).

One interesting thing about it is that it has all kinds of notes and commentary from Zwingli, which you can see in the picture in the smaller letters.