The Multilingual God: Stories of Translation

by Stephen Fortosis

Some decades ago the prospect of reaching the entire world with the gospel appeared very dim indeed. In a world population that was virtually exploding with growth, how could Christians begin to reach the billions of fellow humans? Then missionaries began mastering the multiplied languages on earth, placing the Bible on paper, making recordings of the gospel, and beaming the Word of God out on radio and television waves. A portion of the Bible was translated painstakingly into over a thousand languages. The entire Bible was translated into several hundred. There was reason to be hopeful. Missionaries taught nationals how to plant churches. Then nationals started planting churches, and churches begat churches . . . Bible translators had and continue to play a crucial role in the mission of reaching every people with the gospel, and this book describes how. Follow them into the fascinating, exciting world of Bible translation.

Genres: Linguistics, Christian

205 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this Christmas gift from my wife. A bit dizzying in its switches from place to place and story to story, but its breadth coupled with the indexes (of both scriptures and concepts) make it great as a resource for examples or illustrations of Bible translation.

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to give the book a rating in order to review it. It is actually a book I wrote. It is an account of a group of people some claim are doing one of the most complex jobs anyone can do. It is often rendering a spoken language into a written one, and then translating the Bible into that language. Hundreds of fascinating examples are offered describing how translators render the Bible so that even the most diverse cultures and people groups can understand it.

[Steve Miller]

I personally know some of the translators in this book and have met several of the others. For that reason, I'm not giving a rating on this book.

The book contains a huge collection of translation puzzles and how translators resolved them. But from my perspective, the Epilogue perhaps gets closest to core issues that translators face. The rest of the book simply illustrates the issues.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for fascinating subject matter; two stars for structure