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Bonifacio Paulo - Africa (April 2024)
Bonifacio Paulo - Africa (April 2024)
How did you get interested in Bible translation? In the early 1990s, when I was in my second year at the Evangelical Seminary, an SIL staff was invited to come and offer a three-month module named ‘Introduction to Bible Translation’. One of the requirements for this module was to read the Bible in one’s mother language. During this module, I realized that for many years of attending church services and now in the Seminary, I had been reading the Bible in Portuguese, but it never spoke to me. Now reading the Bible in my mother language, I began to understand it much better than when I read the Portuguese translation.
At the end of this module, one thing remained in my heart: like me, there are thousands and thousands of people who read the Bible and don’t understand it, simply because they read in a language they do not understand. This became a strong motivation for me to get involved in Bible translation.
What gets you excited when you work with others in Bible translation? What gets me excited is when I work with others in Bible translation for the same end goal - “eradication of Bible poverty” which does not remain a concept but a life, when lives are transformed.
What is your consulting philosophy? The Bible is not for the eye but for the ear. When I do consultant checking, I imagine being in a community of believers where one person reads and many people listen.
How do you share your translation discoveries with others? At the moment, my main platform where I share my translation discoveries are translation workshops and conferences.
Can you share about a time when you realized you were wrong and what you learned from it? Being wrong is not my choice, it is my nature. It is only by God’s grace that I am right. I have no specific time that I can say I learned because of the wrong I did. Learning for me is a lifestyle and most of my learning opportunities come out of the wrong I do.
What are your top tips for someone starting on a career path in Bible translation? Humbleness; respect for others; the consultant has no final say, the language group does; ongoing learning; every context is unique and therefore different from other contexts.
Share something that you learned from a mentor or from a mentee. I learned from one of my mentees that, although he had not shown some of the key competences for a translation consultant, I needed to trust him to lead some checking sessions, and it turned out that he proved to be more capable than I thought.
What do you see as the place of the church in Bible translation? In my personal view, Bible translation is an integral part of the Great Commission, and the church plays a key role. This is why when I look for an impact partner in any translation project, the church is priority number one on my list. Who identifies the need for a Bible translation? Who makes the decision to start the translation? Where are the translators from? Where are the consultants from? Who owns the language? Who distributes the Bibles? Who uses the Bible? Who benefits from the Bible? My answer to these and other related questions is one – the church.
What would you say to young/aspiring translators? Always have in mind that you are translating an ancient yet living text into a present and living language for a real language group that needs to experience a life transformation.
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