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Tuvins eagerly await the whole Bible in the language of their hearts
Vitaliy describes one of the problems he has encountered in the translation process: “Our team had made a decision to keep the spelling of proper names exactly like in the Russian Synodal translation. This policy was based on the overwhelming desire of Tuvin Christians from various churches to keep the orthography as close as possible to the only Bible most of them have known.” “I had at first expected that the number of misleading cases would be minimal, but it wasn’t. One example of a non-standardized name transliteration is that of Zobah. The Synodal translators rendered this name with no fewer than four alternative spellings! Of course, no major theological point hinges on getting this name spelled uniformly throughout, but the average reader of the Russian Bible who does not have access to the original Hebrew text will most likely think that these four names refer to different places, which is a mistake that I don’t want to be responsible for promulgating in the Tuvin Bible translation.” The Pentateuch, Psalms and Proverbs are now being prepared for publication. The number of Christians in Buddhist Tuva is growing because of the New Testament, and they eagerly await the day when they can read the whole Bible in the language of their hearts. Thank you for your involvement in this work with your prayers and donations!
Project of the Month There are approximately 250,000 Tuvins living in the Republic of Tuva in southern Siberia. Most are Buddhists and shamanists. Support the publication of the Pentateuch, Psalms and Proverbs with your donation to this month’s project. |
The Tuvins in southern Siberia received the New Testament in 2001. Work on the Old Testament is now in progress. Vitaliy Voinov, the project coordinator, writes: ”During the hot summer months, I usually prefer to sequester myself in the cool, quiet translation office and work, work, work. This summer I worked with the exegetical checking of Jeremiah, 1 Samuel and Judges. It is good that these books had been drafted at approximately the same time. I quickly get exhausted by the difficult Hebrew poetry that makes up the majority of Jeremiah. That’s when a good dose of ancient Israelite war texts can come to the rescue.”