Thursday 24 July 2008

Get Your Facts Straight!

The Observer, one of Jamaica's most read newspapers, has published some factual errors in regards to the Jamaican Creole Translation Project. Here are the ones I've detected:
  1. On 16th June the paper reported that Rev’d Courtney Stewart is the “UBS' general secretary.” Absolutely not! Rev’d Stewart is the General Secretary of the Bible Society of the West Indies.
  2. On 16th June the Observer indicated that the source language for the translation is English. Today, 26th June, the paper even went as far as to spell out the precise English translation the Society will use: the AV (KJV)!
  3. The paper also reported that 40% of the New Testament has already been translated. Rather 52% of the New Testament has received a first draft – the Synoptic gospels, John and Romans. Bible translation is a complex task and a first draft is just the start! Each book will need exegetical and language checks, community testings, reviewings, back-translations and consultant and consistence checkings before the text is recorded. Where Bible translation is concerned, a biblical book cannot be said to have been “translated” in the proper sense of the word without these requirements being met satisfactorily. (So much for those who believe the Jamaican Project is a trivial endeavour).

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