EMQ » Jan – March 2025 » Volume 61 Issue 1
Redeemed Arts
Summary: The Altai people of southern Siberia have a rich artistic history. A local Bible translation team studied local art forms to see which ones could be used to convey passages of Scripture from the Psalms and Judges. The result was a worshipful rendition of biblical passages performed using local arts. This deeply resonated with local audiences while also affirming the value of the Altai culture.
By Bronwen Cleaver
The Republic of Altai is the home of the Altai people. It is located in southern Siberia about 4,000 km (around 2,500 miles) west of Moscow. It is in the centre of Asia and borders China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. The Altai people are estimated to number approximately 76,000.
Our Altai arts project began in 2019 when the Bible translation team gathered for a seminar on how to translate the Bible using oral Bible translation (OBT). This is a method of translation used for oral preference peoples (communities which prioritise oral over written communication).
The key feature of OBT is internalisation of biblical passages. Kris Toler defines it this way, “Internalization is mentally processing a piece of information to the point that a translator owns it, as if it were his or her own experience.”[i] The emphasis is on the ability to retell the passage being translated in one’s own words, in one’s own language, and even to be able to adapt it to different audiences.
Internalisation allows improvisation with each instance of telling and retelling. It requires more than just intellectual comprehension of the words. Rather, it depends on complete comprehension of and immersion into the biblical passage so that it becomes as if it were part of the translator’s own experience. The Altai translation team planned to translate 15 psalms in this way, one of which was Psalm 133. They also translated the story of Deborah from Judges 4–5.
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