Some Good Links

Of late, a good deal of what I have been doing is of the writing and creative variety. This means I’ve had very little by way of creative thought left over for blogging. Though I rather hope that all of this thinking and writing at work will produce something blogworthy at a later date.

Anyway, in the absence of anything useful or inspiring from me, here are a few good things that I’ve found on the interweb of late.

Mark, whose blog just gets better and better has a lovely little post entitled God Moves at Three Miles an Hour.

In the Bible translation arena, my old mate  Jack Popjes has posted a funny story about translators in North America getting the Psalms all messed up:

v.1 The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want
The interpreter substituted sheep with wild mountain goats. The closest translation for “herding” was “doing something with animals” which in the case of wild goats was to hunt them. The word “my” carried the meaning “one who works for me.”
The first verse of the Psalm went like this:
God is my goat hunter,
I don’t want him!

On a more serious note, I’ve just discovered a new Bible translation blog which is well worth following. Generally I don’t like anonymous blogs, but I’m prepared to make an exception for Foibled who blogs about some of the more personal aspects of Bible translation work. In a sense, his blog could be about any aspect of Christian ministry but it is all the more powerful for me because it covers the work I do and the part of the world I lived in. Give him a read. His observations make uncomfortable reading, here is a brief quote:

The pattern that emerged was that of the personal and family needs of the missionary translator taking precedence over the concerns of local pastors. At first I thought that the local pastors were being picky. But then I thought about how I would react if a foreigner came to my country, started a Christian ministry in my home area and then made most of his decisions to suit himself and his family’s needs.

On a lighter note, Phil Ritchie has a comment on footballer translations which will make you smile after the difficult stuff.

We’ve been struggling with some administration stuff this week, but it is nothing compared to trying to get a passport renewed in Nigeria. Make yourself a coffee and settle down to give this one a read.