You Can't Rush These Things
by Yvonne Blake

There are approximately 120 Paite Christian churches in the northeastern corner of India. It is a literate society, and the people long for God's Word in their language.

"The Gospel light came to our tribe almost 80 years ago [It has now been more than 100 years]. The last 50 years saw a great change. Demon worship is gone. By the grace of God we have progressed greatly. Now all our tribes people have heard the Gospel and many have turned to the Lord. We are eagerly awaiting the Word of God in our language. Only younger people read Hindi or English. Even then there is no understanding of content. We want an accurate Bible in Paite that is readable and that will help us know God in our language." - Rev. Khothang

In 2004 the first edition of the Paite Bible was produced. The translation work, however, is never completely finished. As with any translation of the Scriptures, there were places where the translation needed refinement and revision. Some of these places became apparent as the translation was used in the churches. Thus, the revision work essentially begins once the translation gets into the hands of the people.

Over the last six years, Pastor Mangte Kamkhanthang has read through the newly translated Bible many times in his daily devotional times and often with his family. He made revisions and then distributed copies to a team of other Paite speakers who are also reading through the revision, asking questions, and making suggestions.

Pastor Mangte is working to improve the translation, especially on the level of style. Kim Hibbard, one of Bibles International’s translation consultants in India, met with him on August 30 - September 10. They reviewed his revisions of II Samuel 19 - I Kings 15. She was pleased to see his dedication to the work.

Rising early in the morning, Pastor Mangte re-read passages that had been previously checked to ask for help in places that needed to be smoother. Sometimes, during the regular checking session, they hit upon an excellent translation of a difficult word, and he would go back to see if that translation would work in an earlier book.

Describing the construction of the temple in I Kings was extremely difficult. In some cases, the Hebrew architectural or construction terms are so rare that scholars aren’t exactly sure what the term mean. One such example is apparent in the KJV where the translators give an alternate rendering in the footnote for “of narrow lights” in 1 Kings 6:4. They explain that it could also be translated as “broad within, and narrow without.” They give a third rendering as “skewed and closed.” The difficulty of this Hebrew phrase is also apparent by the variety of renderings in other translations. In other cases, the words might be understandable, but the challenge was picturing how it all fit together. Many times, Kim used a whiteboard to roughly draw what was being described.

It has been very hard for the churches to be patient during this process. They would like Pastor Mangte to work more quickly, so they may print more copies for their people. A representative attended the last session of the workshop as Kim and Pastor Mangte checked over the translation. He seemed quite excited about the revision and realized that the process cannot be rushed. It must be done carefully.

Pastor Mangte realizes the importance of his task. This is God's Word. It must be studied carefully and reverently, so that He may speak to the Paite people in their own language.