world and preach the good news to all creation. While much progress has been
made, more than 2,000 languages—spoken by more than 350 million people—still
lack translations of the Bible.
Now, Bible
translators are aiming to close the gap with the next wave of translations that
target yet unreached people groups—and offer study aids and new versions for
nations where the Gospel is actively preached.
Biblica, which
has already translated the Bible into more than 100 languages, just took the
Gospel one step further by offering the Word of God in Tagalog. Just other
translators are publishing modern-language versions of the Scriptures, Biblica
has released a Tagalog Bible in contemporary language for the Philippines’ 85
million Tagalog speakers.
Work on the
NIV-like translation for the Tagalog Bible began 20 years ago. That’s when
Nelson Mandela was released from prison, Lech Walesa became president of
Poland, GM launched its Saturn line of cars, and the first Web page was
created. The Tagalog Bible comes at the heels of Biblica’s Thai NIV Bible.
Even still,
there is much work to do. Wycliffe Bible Translators, though, has more good
news. The company recently announced it has raised nearly $250,000 million of
the $1 billion it needs to execute the Last Languages Campaign.
Wycliffe’s
mission is to see a Bible translation started in every language that needs one
by the year 2025. Launched in November 2008, the Last Languages Campaign aims
to gather the people, prayer and financial resources needed to accomplish
Wycliffe’s mission.
All the while,
there are still new translations of Scripture emerging for English speakers.
Most recently, Zondervan announced an update to the text of the New
International Version of the bible. The new version drops the gender-neutral
language that caused some controversy when it debuted in 2005.
What’s your favorite translation of the Bible? Let me know in the comment box below.
