Tag Archives: culture

Jumping to Conclusions: Bad Exercise

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“A major tornado has hit a provincial capital in southern Canada!”
It was Friday, July 31, 1987, when Jo and I heard this news headline on Brazilian radio.  I listened carefully, expecting to hear about Toronto, Ontario which is on the same latitude as South Dakota. Imagine my surprise when the announcer said, “Edmonton, a city in southern Canada, suffered major damage with twenty fatalities.”

Edmonton? Canada’s northernmost provincial capital? The gateway to the North? With its long cold winters, it’s in southern Canada? My wife and I looked at each other and shook our heads, as much in dismay over the grief caused by the tornado, as over the ignorance of the announcer.

But, later, looking at a map of North America, I understood why the reporter considered Edmonton to be in southern Canada. That’s because it is! It is well over 2,500 km from the northern boundary, and only 500 km from the southern border. It’s not just in the southern fifty percent of Canada, it’s in the southern fifteen percent!

Eli‘s Worldview Versus Hannah’s Reality
I thought of that long-ago incident recently when I read the story in 1 Samuel 1, of Eli the priest seeing Hannah, the childless woman, moving her lips but not uttering a sound. He glanced at her and knew he’d seen that behaviour before–in drunks. So he rebuked her for being drunk. Wrong! She was anything but drunk. She was fervently praying for a child.

Eli’s worldview led him to judge praying Hannah as a drunk. The reporter’s worldview saw Edmonton as a provincial capital located in the southern fifth of Canada, while some Edmontonians see themselves as the northernmost outpost of civilization.

People tend to misinterpret actions by others who have a different worldview. It happens between adults and children, immigrants and long-time residents, retired seniors and college students, international travelers and local residents, and between the haves and the have-nots in our society.

Topless Canela Women
One day a cargo truck stopped in the Canela village on its way to a Brazilian settlement. When the six young Brazilian men, catching a ride on the truck, saw all the Canela women were bare-breasted, they concluded this was a village of sluts and began to behave accordingly. Taking off their shirts and smirking lewdly into each other’s cameras, they draped their arms over the shoulders of half-naked Canela women. As Brazilians, they came from a hyper-sexed society, like our North American culture, which views breasts as sex objects, while to Canelas, breasts were simply baby-feeding organs.

Canela Banking System
When we started our twenty-plus years of living among the Canela, it seemed like we were living in a village of beggars since our neighbours kept asking us for things. It was only after we understood the culture more thoroughly that we realized they were not beggars at all. They were just practicing a centuries-old credit-based trading system.

When a hunter brought home fifty pounds of deer meat, he would have plenty left over after feeding his family. With neither salt nor refrigeration, he had no way to preserve it. So, when neighbours came and asked for some meat, he would gladly give it, knowing he was building up credit with them, to cash in the next time they had excess food. No paper, no IOUs—the entire village-wide credit and debit system was based on mutual understanding and family memory.

So What?
The next time we see someone do something that strikes us as crazy, we probably should ask ourselves, “Is this person of a different age, background, culture, race, gender or nationality?” If so, we need to recognize that this “crazy” action may be perfectly acceptable in the other person’s worldview.

Exercise is good for us, but not when we jump to wrong conclusions. That simply shows our ignorance.

 

Jumping to Conclusions: Bad Exercise

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It was Friday, July 31, 1987, when I heard the news on Brazilian radio. “A major tornado has hit a provincial capital in southern Canada.” I listened carefully, expecting to hear about Toronto, Ontario which is on the same latitude as South Dakota. Imagine my surprise when the announcer said, “Edmonton, a city in southern Canada, suffered major damage with 20 fatalities.”

Edmonton!? Canada’s northernmost provincial capital? The gateway to the North? With its long cold winters, it’s in southern Canada? Jo and I looked at each other and shook our heads, as much in dismay over the grief caused by the tornado, as over the ignorance of the announcer.

But, later, when I looked at a map of North America, I could understand why the reporter considered Edmonton to be in southern Canada. That’s because it is! It is well over 2,500 km from the northern boundary, and only 500 km from the southern border. It’s not just in the southern 50 percent of Canada, it’s in the southern 15 percent!

Eli‘s Worldview Versus Hannah’s Reality
I thought of this incident when I read the story in 1st Samuel 1, of Eli the priest seeing Hannah, the childless woman, moving her lips but not uttering a sound. He glanced at her and knew he’d seen that behaviour before, in drunks. So he rebuked her for being drunk. Wrong! She was anything but drunk. She was fervently praying for a child.

In his worldview, he saw soundlessly moving lips as evidence of drunkenness. In the reality of Hannah’s worldview, she was praying. In the reporter’s worldview, he saw Edmonton as a provincial capital located in the southern fifth of Canada, while Edmontonians see ourselves as the northernmost outpost of civilization.

People constantly tend to misinterpret actions by others who have a different worldview. It happens between adults and children, immigrants and long-time residents, seniors and college graduates, international travelers and local residents, and between the haves and the have-nots in our society.

Canela Women’s Bare Breasts
One day a cargo truck stopped in the Canela village on its way to a Brazilian town. When the young Brazilian men who were catching a ride on the truck saw all the women were topless, hundreds of them, they immediately assumed they were in a village of sluts and began to behave accordingly. They took pictures of each other draping their arms over the shoulders of half naked Canela women while they grinned lewdly into their friends’ camera. As Brazilians, they came from a hyper-sexed society, like our North American culture, which views breasts as sex objects, while on Canela mothers, breasts were thought of as baby feeding organs.

Happy hunter with sloth. Very good eating! And No, they are NOT a protected species.

Happy hunter with sloth. Very good eating! And No, they are NOT a protected species.

Canela Banking System
When we started our 20 plus years of living among the Canela, it seemed like we were living in a village of beggars since our neighbours kept asking for things from us. It was only after we understood the culture better that we realized they were not beggars, but simply practicing trading on the credit system. For generations they had been without refrigeration, or salt to preserve meat. When a hunter brought home fifty pounds of deer meat, he would have plenty left over after feeding his family. So when neighbours would come and ask for some meat, he would gladly give it, knowing he was building up credit with them, to cash in the next time they had excess food. For generations the Canelas had used this incredible mental debt and credit system. No paper, no IOUs, it was all done on mutual understanding and family memory.

We saw them at first as a village of beggars, but we were wrong, the Canelas were operating a sophisticated banking system where debts and credits generally were kept in balance. American bankers could have learned something from them!

Next time you see someone do something that strikes you as crazy, ask yourself, Is this person of a different age, culture, nationality or nationality? If so, try to understand why that action may be perfectly okay in the other person’s worldview.

When was the last time you jumped to a wrong conclusion and said something that showed up your ignorance?

A Special Posting to Celebrate the Launch!

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BT EBook_Cover Final_Printsize_v3A few weeks ago I published my second e-book, The Why and How of Bible Translation: What Every Christian Should Know, but few do . . . very few. I immediately sent a download code to the more than fifty people who had already bought it, sight unseen, in previous months. Now it is ready for a general launch.

The 28 story-based articles in the three sections of this book shed light on worldwide Bible translation, a subject most Christians are confused about.

  • Why does the Bible need to be translated, isn’t it easier just to teach indigenous peoples the national language?
  • How is the Bible translated and how can you be sure it is translated accurately?
  • How has technology changed the world of Bible translation?
  • Why did Mark and Luke change what Jesus actually said instead of quoting Him exactly as Matthew did? Should today’s translators follow their example?
  • What is more difficult than translating from one language to another? Hint, think cultures.
  • Find out why support for Bible translation would skyrocket among Christians, if linguistics was taught as widely as biology, chemistry or physics.

A Special 25% Discount to Celebrate the Launch
The Why and How of Bible Translation: What Every Christian Should Know, But Few Do, Very Few
To download your 25% off ebook, only $2.99, go the publisher’s site
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/364616  

Open a free account. Click on Add to Cart.
Fill in this discount code VT57J. (Code expires on November 15, 2013)

You can download this book to your computer, laptop, tablet, e-reader, iPad, Kobo, Kindle, Nook, or smartphone, etc., as many times as you want and in as many formats as you want.

Tickle-Funny-Bone-cvrP3In Case You Missed the First E-Book
Here’s how to buy the first e-book, A Tickle in the Funny Bone, which is a collection of a dozen of my humorous columns including all the April Fool’s columns and the often hilarious responses from readers.

Download from the publisher’s site for only $1.99
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/258000

Next week’s posting on INsights & OUTbursts “Jumping to Conclusions: A Bad Exercise”

Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment

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Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment Launch

Finally, after years of work, tons of controversy, and reams of arguments, but with ever increasing support, the New Testament in the Jamaican language is being launched this Sunday, December 9, 2012. Jo and I are delighted that our grandson, Tyler Vanderveen, worked in Jamaica for the past seven months under Wycliffe Caribbean to promote the use of the Scriptures in Jamaican.

For generations the Jamaican Creole language, usually referred to as patois or patwa, has been looked down on, scorned, and not considered a real language. No wonder the word “patois” is never written with a capital letter.

During the years the Bible translators were working, letters to the newspaper editors and callers to radio phone-in programs presented the usual objections to translating the Bible into patois—the language spoken by about two million Jamaicans:  “Jamaican patois is not good enough to express the concepts of the Bible.” They also urged the usual advice, “Speakers of patois just need to learn English better.”

Those days are finally over. From now on, what used to be disparagingly called broken English will be called the Jamaican language. While English is the official language ofJamaica, most children grow up speaking Jamaican and learn English in school.

For centuries, every new translation of the Bible was criticized. Jerome translated the Bible from Greek into Latin around 400 AD. It was criticized because he had not translated it into the classical Latin used by orators and poets, but into the common, everyday Latin spoken by people on the street and at home. That is why they called Jerome’s translation the Vulgate. It was vulgar, not in the sense of being indecent, but of being common.

Disapproval of new translations is routine. Even the partial Bible that my wife and I translated—with the help of gifted and trained Canela associates—was disparaged. Imagine that! Whenever I showed the Canela Bible to Portuguese speaking Brazilian pastors, they automatically assumed that the translation in Canela was not as clear, as accurate, or as good as the Bible they used in preaching to their Portuguese-speaking congregations.

I did not argue with them, but I knew from sitting in their church services that when they read the archaic three-hundred-year-old Portuguese Ferreira de Almeida version, they had to take most of the sermon time to explain to the congregation what the passage meant before making an application. Meanwhile no one needs to explain what the Bible in Canela says—it speaks clearly right off the page.

Wherever in the world the Bible is translated into minority languages, someone will level criticism at it. In having their work scorned, the translators of di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment, as well as the translation teams currently working in nearly two thousand other minority languages around the world, are in good company. John Wycliffe, who did the first major translation since Jerome’s Vulgate a thousand years earlier, was strongly criticized for translating the Bible into English. A contemporary historian and fellow clergyman, Henry Knighton spoke for the clergy of his day when he criticized the translation into English as follows:

“Christ gave the Scriptures to the clergy and doctors of the Church so that they could use it to meet the needs of lay people and other weaker (uneducated) persons. John Wycliffe has now translated it into common English which has laid the Bible more open to literate laymen and women than it has formerly been to the most learned of the clergy. The jewel of the Church, hitherto the principal gift of the clergy and the divines, has now been cast abroad, and trodden under foot of swine, and is now made ever more common to lay people.”

Henry Knighton used the wrong metaphor. The Word of God is not a jewel to be preserved in a glass case, admired, and taught about by the well-educated chosen few. Jesus Himself called God’s Word not a jewel but seed which is meant to be scattered generously everywhere and to sprout in prepared soil.

The Creator made men and women in His own image, with the capacity to hear Him and communicate with Him irrespective of their educational level. God looks for people with receptive hearts—hearts that will respond when they hear His Word in the language they understand best.

Jamaicans everywhere on earth can finally read and hear God’s Word clearly. May they respond in faith and understanding as never before.

Great Stories, Jack, But Are They True?

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Recently I was the keynote speaker at a church mission conference where, during my three speeches I brought out my points by telling 25 personal stories. All of these stories were true, having happened in my life. All, except one.

The last meeting was an international dinner featuring a buffet with foods from every continent. Many of the guests were dressed in costumes native to countries where they had been born or had worked. The person introducing me jokingly asked why Jo and I had not dressed in the native costume of the Canela people of Brazil among whom we had worked for decades.

Jack Being Dressed in Canela Native Costume

“When we returned to Canada from Brazil,” I told the audience, “we were invited to dress in native Canela costume to attend an international dinner much like this one. Using plenty of body paint we got ourselves ready, and drove to the banquet. Fortunately it was a nice warm day. We had to park some distance from the church and were walking along the sidewalk when a passing RCMP patrol car suddenly pulled up alongside of us, two policemen jumped out, covered us with blankets, and arrested us for indecent exposure.”

This story was a lie from beginning to end and, after my audience had stopped laughing, I confessed. But what about the other 24 stories I told during that conference? Were they lies too? Or did I tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

No, they weren’t lies. But they weren’t the whole truth either. To tell the whole truth is nearly impossible and would totally spoil the story.

Just think about it. What if a dozen microphones and cameras were to record every sound and angle of a two-minute memorable event in my life from start to finish? When you viewed all that footage, surely you would know the 100% truth about that event. No, you would not!

Cameras and microphones might show the date and the time, but they don’t record what I smelled, or tasted, or how warm I was, or how I was feeling physically. Nor would there be any record of what I was thinking, how I was feeling emotionally, what I remembered of similar incidents in the past, or what I resolved to do from now on. Yet aren’t these mental and emotional aspects often the most important part of a story? What was the final impact of the event on my life? No video can show that.

Yet, I can tell you the story of that same two-minute event in such a way that you will end up feeling the same emotions I was feeling, come to the same conclusion as I came to, and may even allow the lesson to impact you in the same way it impacted me.

I would not have described every possible second of the two-minute event, nor quoted every single word accurately. I would have left out many, many facts. Had I left them in they would have diluted the story and left you bored with all the true, but irrelevant detail.

Jesus did the same thing when He told His stories. Mark 4:3-8 records a 35-second story of the farmer who scattered seed on four different types of soil. Jesus did not tell the whole truth. He left out scores of facts: The farmer’s name, his age, his experience, what he was wearing, his marital and family status, the size of the field, the time of day, the amount of seed, the exact kind of seed, the species of birds that ate the seed, where the path led to, etc. All facts, all true, but He left them all out because they were irrelevant to the point of His story.

I want to be a good storyteller. That’s why, like Jesus, I never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.

Bible Translation: More Complex Than You Think . . . Way More!

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All major world religion have preserved the words of their founders in the very language in which they spoke them. All except Christianity.

Jesus spoke the Galilean dialect of Aramaic and except for a dozen or so words, none of the hundreds of thousands of words He spoke during his three years of ministry were written down for us in His own words. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the first translators. They translated all the stories about Jesus, and all his teachings, from Aramaic to Greek. Ever since, Bible translators have been translating from Greek into other languages.

Most North American church goers don’t appreciate the fact that Christianity was started as a translated religion, and thrives only through translation into local languages. Nor do most people understand that the Gospel writers did not simply translate between to closely related languages such as English and French. Instead, they translated from the Semetic language family into the Indo-European language family. There is as much relationship between these two language families as there is between English and Mandarin Chinese. Besides that, they had to keep in mind they were translating from a Jewish culture to a Greco-Roman culture. Again, a huge difference.

Jack in late 1960s starting translation with Canela

Bible translation, therefore, is an extremely complex task, but one that God has blessed throughout the ages. Today I want to introduce as a guest blogger, a friend and Wycliffe colleague who knows far more about Bible translation than I do. Hart Wiens is Director of Scripture Translations for the Canadian Bible Society. He laid the groundwork for the translation of the Scriptures for the Kalinga people of the Philippines.

Hart’s article appeared in the June 6 issue of Christian Week and is reprinted with permission.

Tackling translation

In his widely acclaimed book, Translating the Message, Lamin Sanneh, professor of World Christianity and History at Yale University, wrote that, “The central and enduring character of Christian history is the rendering of God’s eternal counsels into terms of everyday speech.” This demonstrates that, “God does not absolutize any one culture.”

This is a radical departure from the tenets of the religion in which Sanneh grew up where authoritative communication from God was restricted to one language. Translation is key to the spread of Christianity.

Recently, though, disagreement over the faithful and sensitive treatment of certain key terms in a few situations where Islam is the dominant religion has sparked a controversy that has deeply touched the hearts of people engaged in and supportive of this work.

The controversy

While the U.S. branch of Wycliffe Bible Translators has been specifically named in this controversy, the issues raised have relevance for the broader translation community and for the Church.

There are two main issues involved. The first has to do with the use of the term “Allah” for God. Some of Wycliffe’s translation work used this word, which raised questions for many in the Christian community.

While there is legitimate debate in some languages over the use of this term by Christians, it is commonly accepted in languages where Islam is the dominant faith. Semitic languages such as Arabic commonly use “Allah” where English uses “God.” The word is actually closely related to the Hebrew term “El” and “Elohim.”

The second, more challenging, issue is how to translate familial terms for God as “Father” and Jesus as “Son” in languages where these terms are only understood biologically. If translators are not careful, serious misunderstandings arise about the nature of the Trinity. Unfortunately literal renderings have mistakenly been understood to imply that God and Mary had a sexual relationship.

In these situations translators struggle to find more accurate ways of communicating the true nature of the father and son relationship in the Trinity—a relationship of familial rather than biological intimacy.

The response

Wycliffe has given assurance that their personnel “are not omitting or removing the familial terms, translated in English as “Son of God” or “Father,” from any Scripture translation. Wycliffe continues to be committed to accurate and clear translation of Scripture. The eternal deity of Jesus Christ and the understanding of Jesus’ relationship with God the Father must be preserved in every translation.”

Further, Wycliffe has agreed to submit to a review of its Bible translation practices through a formal review led by respected theologians, biblical scholars, translators, linguists, and missiologists from the global Church and conducted under the auspices of the World Evangelical Alliance.

Go forward in love

As we consider this situation, Paul’s words in Colossians 3 come to mind: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience . . . And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

It would seem advisable for concerned people to give the review process initiated by Wycliffe and the World Evangelical Alliance a chance to bear fruit so that the ministry of Bible translation can go forward and Christ’s Kingdom can flourish.