Written Bibles and Literacy
We Support the Development of Written Scripture
Bible storying and orality based mission strategies are excellent ways to reach oral peoples, but StoryRunners is not abandoning the written Word or surrendering to illiteracy. We are simply using the Story Bible™ strategy to meet oral learners in the most effective way we have found.
We treasure and enjoy the written Bible, the sole authority for Christian faith and practice. Ideally, everyone should have access to written scriptures in their own language and the ability to read them.
Urgency of the Task
The problem is that there are still thousands of people groups without scriptures in their language. At the current pace of written translation work, some will wait at least another generation to have a written Bible while millions pass into eternity without knowing who Jesus is. Even when they get Bibles, widespread literacy will take even longer to develop.
How should the urgency of the Great Commission be balanced with the need for written scriptures?
A major Bible translation agency decided in 2008 to begin all new projects in Asia using a storying approach similar to the Story Bible. They believe that storying speeds up translation and builds interest in the written scriptures.
When translators start working on a new language, there is often no strong church or few believers for the translators to work with. There is little interest or demand for Bibles, and oral peoples may have little motivation to learn to read.
But when the people hear Bible stories, enjoy them, and start to re-tell them, people believe and churches grow. Eventually, the ones who follow Jesus develop a curiosity about the source of the stories, and they want to read the Bible for themselves.
When they develop an interest in the written Word, they are much more likely to desire a written translation project and actively participate in it themselves. These are ideal conditions for Bible translation that will ultimately accelerate the translation process.
Translation
As you begin to use a storying approach in your ministry with Bibleless people groups, don't forget that you are still engaging in Bible translation on some level. You will face the same complexities as written translations; the development of key terms, the amount of contextualization and comprehension are still important.
That's why we recommend working with Bible translators or translation consultants, or at least have your mission teams get training from them. Oral back translations and testing can be used to ensure accuracy, just like written translations.
For further reading on how orality and storying relate to Bible translation, you may want to read an article by Stan Wafler called, “The Interrelationship of Orality and Bible Translation.”
