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Post by M. Hawbaker on Oct 5, 2020 16:33:52 GMT
The number of full Bible translations hit 700 in recent weeks, although due to the speed at which translations have been released, no one is sure which one was the first to reach the mark.
Wycliffe Bible Translations and the American Bible Society both celebrated the news, saying it’s a major milestone in advancing the gospel. The 700 total involves complete Bibles with all 66 books translated. Partial translations (such as New Testaments) are not included.
James Poole, executive director of Wycliffe Bible Translators, said the milestone “represents the tremendous work that Bible translators are doing across the world.”
“Every time we hear of the Bible being translated into another language, we know that means that for the first time the people in that language group can fully access the complete picture of God’s story,” Poole said. “It’s good to take a step back and realize what this 700th Bible means: 5.7 billion people who speak 700 languages now have the Bible in the language that speaks to them best. That is a remarkable figure and continues to grow.”
Wycliffe said it’s “impossible” to know which one was the 700th because there were “several launches of physical Bibles” and “several being made available online and via apps, all at about the same time.”
Despite the milestone, about 1.5 billion people – or one in five people in the world – still don’t have a Bible in their language, Wycliffe said.
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Post by barb43 on Oct 6, 2020 14:36:14 GMT
This is awesome news!
I had no idea how many languages there are in the world, but after reading that 1.5 billion people still do not have a Bible in their language, I went looking for an answer. We have several Native American languages right here in this country that scholars are working to preserve and teach. There are approximately 7,000 Comanches locally, so we hear news on the preservation of their language, numu tekwapu, which means "language of the people".
I don't know how many people speak these different Native languages, but most likely speak American English as well.
So, I found there are approximately 6,500 languages, worldwide ...
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Post by M. Hawbaker on Oct 6, 2020 15:15:42 GMT
According to Wikipedia:
In addition to the 700 languages which now have the whole Bible, the complete New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,548 languages, and individual Books of the Bible or smaller portions of Scripture have been translated into 1,138 other languages. So at least some part of the Bible has been translated into 3,386 languages. Of the 700 languages that have a complete Bible, 135 also have the additional books that are included in the Catholic Bible.
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