Portable computers and satellites get the credit for speeding things up by about 125 years.

Previously, a Wycliffe missionary family or team would spend decades learning and transcribing one language in a remote corner of the Earth.

Wycliffe's missionaries had the credo, "one team, one language, one lifetime," Edwards said.

At that pace, the target date had been 2150, Edwards said.

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Wycliffe Bible Translators - Heroes and Saints

By William A. Wheatley
June 25, 2010

The blog "Clerical Whispers" (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2010/06/bible-translations-in-every-language-by.html) reports, "A Christian endeavor of almost 2,000 years could be substantially completed by 2025 when Protestant translators expect to have the Bible - or at least some of it - written in every one of the world's 6.909 spoken languages."

The blog is speaking of the Wycliffe Bible Translators, quoting Paul Edwards, who heads up Wycliffe Bible Translators' $1 billion Last Languages Campaign, as he told the Denver Post, "We're in the greatest period of acceleration in 20 centuries of Bible translation."

Recently, portable computers and satellites have speeded up the process by about 125 years. Previously, a Wycliffe missionary family or team would spend decades learning and transcribing a language in a remote corner of the earth, following the credo, "One team, one language, one lifetime." At the pace of work then in place, they expected to finish about 2150 AD.

I have a great deal of respect for the Wycliffe Bible Translators. When my family were living in Mexico during my childhood, we often played host to Wycliffe translators en route to or from the tribes with which they were working, mostly in southern Mexico. Six or so became close friends of the family. They were all humble Christians from a variety of denominations, with a zeal for the Scriptures, and a desire to share the scriptures with the people of the world.

Their method was to live among a tribe, learning the tribe's language, and developing an alphabetical method of transcribing it, thus creating a written language for the tribe. They would then translate the Bible into that language, leaving copies of the translated Bible with the tribe, before moving on to another tribe to start the process over again. They did not preach; they taught the tribe to read, and discussed with the tribe what the Bible said in order to perfect their translation of it.

They would read a passage to the tribe, then ask the tribe to tell them how the tribe interpreted what they had heard. They would use this to measure the effectiveness and fidelity of their translation, revising many times before concluding that their translation was as good as practicably could be accomplished. While they taught the Bible, the let the Bible speak for itself.

To help the tribe get past the obvious conflicts between various Bible passages, they taught the Bible as an historical document, albeit inspired by God and containing His Word - a document that contained not only the Word of God but the perspective of the writer on history in his time, and that this accounted for most of the conflicts. Further, they taught that the Bible shows the history of Man's understanding of God as God progressively revealed himself to Man, culminating in the final Revelation, Jesus Christ Himself.

Typically, the translators worked in pairs. Many were married couples with children in tow. Many were pairs of celibate women or men, devoting themselves and their lives to the transmission of the Holy Word. Some gave their lives in martyrdom.

All of them that we encountered were Protestants, many of them evangelical Protestants, but they never spoke of their denominations, which didn't matter for their mission. They did not teach scripture theologically. For tribes that were near a Catholic church, the translators worked not only with the tribe but with the local priest, teaching him the tribe's written language so he could continue the evangelization of the tribe. In that sense, they were much like Billy Graham, who always turned his converts back to their own denominations for further care.

The story of the Wycliffe Bible Translators is very much underreported and underappreciated by the developed Christian world. Not only are they spreading Christianity to people who are primarily pagan or animist, they are also spreading literacy, enabling the tribes to claim a share of the benefits of the developed world, like knowledge about hygiene, disease prevention, how to obtain medical care and education, and learning how to continue their tribal farming and animal husbandry on a businesslike basis that brings revenue to the tribe.

Yet there are those who criticize the Wycliffe Bible Translators for inserting themselves into the culture of the tribes, thereby changing that culture. There are some who argue that the culture of primitive tribes has as much right to continue in existing as our own. While I am all for preserving a record of such cultures, I would not hold the tribes people hostage to primitivism. They have as much right to aspire, to develop, and to change as we do.

Wycliffe Bible Translators, by developing written languages for primitive peoples, are helping to preserve a written record of their languages and enriching our knowledge of those cultures. In addition, they are improving the lives of the people and giving them the Book of Life, the Holy Scriptures, the Gospel of Christ Jesus, in some cases sacrificing their lives in the process.

As I see it, Wycliffe Bible Translators are heroes and saints. I invite anyone reading this to visit the Wycliffe www.wycliffe.org, where you may learn more about them and, if you wish donate to their effort.

----William Arthur Wheatley, R.A. is Chairman and CEO of Wheatley US Limited a management, engineering and architectural expertise for business and construction projects around the world.