As technology adoption increases across age groups, the global Church is beginning to bridge the digital gap, including in Bible translation.
A recent Pew Research study shows that the technology usage gap between Americans under 30 and those over 65 has significantly narrowed over the past decade. However, within the Bible translation community, a digital divide still exists.
Dane, a spokesperson with unfoldingWord, a ministry dedicated to enabling church-centric Bible translation, says traditional translation methods often require high-tech infrastructure, formal training, and external oversight. This creates barriers for many language communities that need God’s Word in their heart language.
One of the biggest challenges, Dane explains, stems from a common misconception: “The question goes like this: ‘I thought only experts with PhDs could translate the Bible. How can we know church-based Bible translations are trustworthy?”
This perception and a global decline in the number of qualified Bible translation consultants created a bottleneck. “It drove the creation of unfoldingWord’s software toolset that we call translationCore,” Dane says.
translationCore is a suite of open-access digital tools designed to empower local churches and translation teams with quality control, accuracy checks, and collaboration support. More about that here.
The impact is already visible. “This team [in Myanmar] is working on a translation that will reach over 600,000 people who have never heard the story of Jesus in their language,” Dane shares.
By streamlining the translation checking process, translationCore drastically increases efficiency.
“They tell us, ‘When we have to check a Bible translation by hand, manually, we can get through maybe 10 verses a day. When using translationCore, we can check 100 verses a day,’” Dane reports.
unfoldingWord provides these tools free of charge to the global Body of Christ, but continued development depends on support. “We share these tools… without charge, but they aren’t free,” Dane notes.
Original Article – translationCore empowers global Church to accelerate Bible translation – Mission Network News
