M. A. in Bible Translation

I mentioned this over in the Bible Translation forum, but Rhet suggested that I announce it here, so here goes.

Our seminary, named simply Baptist Theological Seminary, has begun offering an M. A. in Bible Translation. This is planned as a 40 credit master's including 9 credits in translation and linguistics, and requirements in Greek and Hebrew, theology, Bible introduction, etc. Also required is an internship doing actual Bible translation preparation or acting as a translation consultant.

Requirements to enter the program include: a course in basic linguistics, the usual four semesters (3 credits each) of elementary and intermediate Greek, and a course in personal evangelism. All of these courses are offered in our undergrad program at Baptist College of Ministry.

I am absolutely thrilled to be able to participate in this effort, and am now teaching the first course to two future Bible translators, Bible Translation Theory and Practice. More later.

 

If you'll look at p. 55 of our catalog, it lists the program: http://bcmedu.org/images/catalog_2018.pdf

For anyone worried about our accreditation and our level of academics, you'll see from the faculty list that, including my son and me, we are heavy on degrees from regionally accredited Maranatha. My son's M.Div. and Ph.D. are also accredited. As for myself, I'm now enrolled in the Maranatha D.Min. program (though that doesn't yet appear in the catalog), thus striving to keep our academic standards high. Our resident linguist is currently working on the thesis for her M.A in linguistics under SIL, having completed the course work, and talking about a Ph.D. someday. In the interview before being hired, I specifically asked about academic standards, and was satisfied with the answer.

Our leadership has chosen not to get any kind of accreditation since the schools are under the umbrella of the church, and so they were philosophically reluctant to go towards accreditation.

 

One reason I'm thrilled about this degree is that grad degrees in this subject are very rare, yet we feel they are vital in fulfilling the Great Commission. There are a few out there, and the Southwestern BTS program stands out among them.

Several things are a little different about our program.
1. It's a Bible translation degree, not a linguistics degree. A majority of such programs (SIL, BJU) emphasize the linguistics rather than the translation end. However, we have experienced Bible translators as teachers (yours truly and my son).
2. We have a heavy component of systematic theology, believing that it is important for a translator to know theology.
3. We are requiring each student to do an internship before graduating, helping on an actual Bible translation effort.

 

Hi, Jordan. That's an excellent question, and I thank you for asking it and making me think. I believe you mean "without knowing the target language," though. Having said that, if you did mean source language, our students must know Greek, if not Hebrew, before going on an internship.

I do respect BBTI and what they are teaching and accomplishing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've known graduates from there, and my impression is that BBTI is focused on the tribal languages of fairly isolated tribes, which can still be found in South America somewhat. Our contacts and focus are on Africa, where there are many languages and dialects without any Bible portion at all, but where everyone speaks a Pidgin, and either English or French or both. Since we want a local church ministry component to this internship, a ministry in Africa is possible working through a lingua franca but with a need for a Bible in the heart language of the people. There are many such works there.

Here are the possibilities for an internship when the student does not know the target language of the proposed or current translation effort:

1. Train the nationals in translation theory. I did this when I visited Africa in 2016, and this could be done by a student who has taken the course I am teaching right now, "Bible Translation Theory and Practice." I also have a contact in a Muslim country who is thinking of starting a translation, and such an internship would help him.
2. Train the nationals in Greek and/or Hebrew. There is a great need for this. WorldView Ministries has a school in India that does just that.
3. Go on a survey trip to survey a language that needs a Bible. We have one student who should do his internship this summer who traveled to Africa with me and did this in an African language, but only for a few days. So to continue this while working in a local church there would be great for him.
4. Work in an ongoing translation effort as a translation consultant. This would mean using Greek and/or Hebrew expertise to consult with the national translators and help them with the original languages if they have not been trained in the original languages. I know a man not connected with our ministries who is doing this right now. With the Internet this becomes possible without even traveling overseas.
5. We have two young ladies planning to come into our M. A. program in the fall. For them, I'm thinking of sending one to consult for a lady missionary translator in an effort I know of in an Africa tribal language.
Another possibility for such a young lady is to work here in the homeland on an effort to examine the translation already done in an Asian language with many speakers here in our area.

 

May I suggest that you use the term "target language" rather than "receptor language"? The reason is that this term was invented by Nida, the inventor of dynamic equivalence (DE), to represent his neo-orthodox view of translation. (I can give quotes on this.) I know that both BBTI and you don't agree with DE.

Thanks for sharing this. It's what I had come to know about BBTI. Our focus in the M.A. would include this worthy goal, but is designed to be good training for any Bible translator at all.

 

You could work on your undergrad Greek here while you took other seminary courses--theology, NT & OT intro, etc. Alternatively, if you've worked on your Greek on your own, you could waive the undergrad Greek requirement by a "satisfactory performance on the Advanced Greek Entrance Exam."

That would depend on the level of study of the BBTI courses you took. If they are on a college level, you could be fulfilling the undergrad requirement for a basic course in linguistics, in particular the Language Acquisition class.

For the M.A. we have two linguistic classes.If they are on a graduate level, we would look at their content to see if they fulfilled our purpose. I imagine your class at BBTI on Morphology and on Syntax might fulfill the LI 611 class. The LI 621 class does not have a parallel at BBTI, though.

Ll 621 Translation Linguistics and Discourse Analysis
An examination of modern linguistics in Bible translation including transformational grammar and sociolinguistics with an emphasis on discourse analysis. Prerequisite: MI 322 or equivalent.

LI 611 Morphology and Syntax
An introduction to the analysis and description of 1) The forms and functions of morphology cross-linguistically and 2) The structure of syntax in a variety of typologically diverse languages, with an emphasis on describing the language both by the representation of syntactic structures with tree diagrams and by writing formal and informal descriptions of languages."

Do you mean Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary? I'm not familiar with a Cromwell TS.

I'd have to look at the content of the class on Principles of Bible Translation to see if it paralleled my class, Bible Translation Theory and Practice.

We're excited about it!

 

Um, discount. Um, yes, well....

 

Here is the description of my course, Bible Translation Theory and Practice:

LI 6012 Bible Translation Theory and Practice.
A study of the theology of translation, various theories of translation (both secular and biblical). Attention is given to particular topics in Bible translation including taboo words, gender and gender neutrality in language, and figures of speech. Prerequisite: AL 202 and/or satisfactory performance on the Advanced Greek Entrance Exam.