This is Trish – remember me? Lynda’s roommate from freshman year at Multnomah long, long ago!

I am sorry we lost touch. I’ve been married now 35 years with 5 children and 10 grandkids. God is good. It was great to read your article and you both look well!

Take care,
Trish

It’s neat how God uses our efforts to help build His church around the world. The seed of God’s Word changes lives. Multnomah helped us have a Biblical foundation and basic knowledge of Greek. SIL / Wycliffe helped us have the tools for language work and translation. Our national coworkers helped us understand and write their language in a culturally appropriate way. Consultants reviewed and affirmed our work. We helped with the Longuda NT in Nigeria (1971-77) and the Duruma NT in Kenya (1987-92, final NT 2000 with help of others). The national translators whom we trained are now working on the Old Testament for their people.

Two communities / “nations” impacted for eternity. Changed and transformed lives a testimony to God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ to Muslim and traditional members of these groups.

To God be the Glory! Great things He has done, is doing and will do! Join the fun and adventure! John (G-1973 part time) and Bonnie (G- 1968) Wycliffe retired

I hope you will not mind a response to all of you at one time since I know you are all acquainted with each other.

Thank you for your passion and concern.

There’s another African proverb that I believe is also relevant to this discussion, “When you want to go fast, go alone. When you want to go far, go together.” That’s is precisely why we are looking forward to this global review of these translation practices. Our desire is that the work of Bible translation will continue to go far, that is to everyone of the roughly 2000 language groups who this day still do not have a word of Scripture in their language. And yes, we want it to be accurate and clear, which is precisely why we are submitting ourselves to this independent, external evaluation.

I know you all have seen the Wycliffe USA February 15th statement, but I will put in the link for the benefit of any others who are interested:

http://www.wycliffe.org/SonofGod.aspx

We are grateful that this review will be led and controlled by others and that it will include a balanced, broad spectrum of the global evangelical church, including believers from Muslim backgrounds and those who we already know hold a different translation position than Wycliffe.

Thank you for your prayers as this goes forward. We hope that as early as next week to be able to update the public with additional details about the review.

For His glory!

With all due respect, the “few language communities” in which Wycliffe has produced or advised Muslim-idiom translations include Arabic (452 million speakers) and Turkish (51 million speakers). That represents an enormous portion of the Muslim world — the single largest block of unreached peoples worldwide.

Moreover, in the October World Magazine article you admitted that Wycliffe had produced some 30-40 translations that employed “alternate renderings” of divine familial terms — all of these in Muslim contexts. How many people speak these languages? I think it is safe to say that “a few language communities” can very quickly morph into a very large percentage — perhaps a majority — of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.

Moreover, why would you be surprised that Wycliffe’s 80 years of faithfulness and evangelical orthodoxy is not an adequate safeguard to error? What is 80 years? I grew up in New England in the theologically liberal (and unashamedly so) United Church of Christ (UCC) — a church which traces is heritage to none other than Jonathan Edwards.

Ironically, the true theological liberals which led the National Council of Churches — of which UCC was and is still part — also produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. God used the RSV to help me see my need for Him. Their theology and interpretation was terrible — but these theological liberals still produced a basically reliable translation. My hat is off to them.

Russ, your Sabeel Media subsidiary is still promoting the Al Kalima site, which markets the Arabic Gospels and Acts, otherwise known as “True Meaning of the Gospel of Christ” advised by SIL (“Leith Gray”) but produced and funded by Frontiers. You are well aware of the dynamics of this translation, in which every instance of “Father” in relation to God is removed and replaced, generally with three alternate words (God, Lord, or guardian/protector) and in which “Son” and “Son of God” is redefined by paratext and footnote — and in which Christ’s Sonship is described as “metaphorical” in the companion commentary notes.

In fact, the reasoning behind this translation can be seen in a 2008 Mission Frontiers article titled “The Missing Father” by the SIL advisor to this project, “Leith Gray.” (I will not include the link here, as the presence of a link may require moderator approval, but the article can be found by a simple internet search.)

The tragedy is that the 600 Frontiers donors who invested more than $214,000 to produce this translation were never told of these changes. They never knew. I never knew — and I was Frontiers’ fundraising director. “Leith Gray” explained his reasoning to the missions community in the Mission Frontiers article, but no such courtesy was extended to Frontiers’ donors. This is not Wycliffe’s fault of course, but it does highlight the cloak of secrecy — and very real controversy — which surrounds these projects.

Your subsidiaries are still promoting and distributing translations which do not meet even your own revised standards. Equally important, these translations beg the deeper question of “why?” — especially as native speakers of Arabic and Turkish reject your basic rationale for this approach.

David Harriman

With all due respect, the “few language communities” in which Wycliffe has produced or advised Muslim-idiom translations include Arabic (452 million speakers) and Turkish (51 million speakers). That represents an enormous portion of the Muslim world — the single largest block of unreached peoples worldwide.

Moreover, in the October World Magazine article you admitted that Wycliffe had produced some 30-40 translations that employed “alternate renderings” of divine familial terms — all of these in Muslim contexts. How many people speak these languages? I think it is safe to say that “a few language communities” can very quickly morph into a very large percentage of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims.

Moreover, why would you be surprised that Wycliffe’s 80 years of faithfulness and evangelical orthodoxy is not an adequate safeguard to error? What is 80 years? I grew up in New England in the theologically liberal (and unashamedly so) United Church of Christ (UCC) — a church which traces is heritage to none other than Jonathan Edwards.

Ironically, the true theological liberals which led the National Council of Churches — of which UCC was and is still part — also produced the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. God used the RSV to help me see my need for Him. Their theology and interpretation was terrible — but these theological liberals still produced a basically reliable translation. My hat is off to them.

Russ, your Sabeel Media subsidiary is still promoting the Al Kalima site, which markets the Arabic Gospels and Acts, otherwise known as “True Meaning of the Gospel of Christ” advised by SIL (“Leith Gray”) but produced and funded by Frontiers. You are well aware of the dynamics of this translation, in which every instance of “Father” in relation to God is removed and replaced, generally with three alternate words (God, Lord, or guardian/protector) and in which “Son” and “Son of God” is redefined by paratext and footnote — and in which Christ’s Sonship is described as “metaphorical” in the companion commentary notes.

In fact, the reasoning behind this translation can be seen here, in this 2008 Mission Frontiers article by the SIL advisor to this project, Leith Gray:

http://www.missionfrontiers.org/pdfs/30-6-the-missing-father.pdf

The tragedy is that the 600 Frontiers donors who invested more than $214,000 to produce this translation were never told of these changes. They never knew. I never knew — and I was the Frontiers fundraising director who promoted and endorsed this project. “Leith Gray” felt free to explain and promote his thinking in the academic press — no such courtesy was extended to Frontiers’ donors.

This is not transparent.

David Harriman

You should not be surprised that One might reasonably conclude that these a very substantial portion