Translating God

Translating God serves as an inspirational guide book that puts God's great love back into prophetic ministry as a primary goal full of real life stories that articulate the culture of love behind God's heart for the prophetic. So much of the prophetic ministry is esoteric and a free for all in which people throw down the God card on anything they "feel," but this book brings balance without taking away the desire to see the powerful nature of God displayed. On top of that, it's biblically based and is supported by scripture throughout each story, driving home the book's message of activating the ability to hear God's voice for each reader. Through a thought-provoking prophetic ministry philosophy and Shawn's glorious successes and very real failures, you will be inspired and equipped to: learn how to hear God for yourself and others grow through simple focused steps, take great risks, stay accountable, love people well, grow in intimacy with the Lord. As an internationally known prophetic voice who has ministered to thousands--from political leaders to those on the streets--Shawn shares everything he has learned about the prophetic in a way that is totally unique and refreshing. Shawn aims for the higher goal of loving people relationally, not just pursuing the gift or information, and he activates you to do the same. Start to reshape the world around you with God's love today.

God in Translation offers a substantial, extraordinarily broad survey of ancient attitudes toward deities, from the Late Bronze Age through ancient Israel and into the New Testament. Looking closely at relevant biblical texts and at their cultural contexts, Mark S. Smith demonstrates that the biblical attitude toward deities of other cultures is not uniformly negative, as is commonly supposed. He traces the historical development of Israel's "one-god worldview, " linking it to the rise of the surrounding Mesopotamian empires. Smith's study also produces evidence undermining a common modern assumption among historians of religion that polytheism is tolerant while monotheism is prone to intolerance and violence.

One of the most precarious and daunting tasks for sixteenth-century European missionaries in the cross-cultural mission frontiers was translating the name of «God» (Deus) into the local language. When the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) introduced the Chinese term Shangti as the semantic equivalent of Deus, he made one of the most innovative cross-cultural missionary translations. Ricci's employment of Shangti was neither a simple rewording of a Chinese term nor the use of a loan-word, but was indeed a risk-taking «identification» of the Christian God with the Confucian Most-High, Shangti. Strange Names of God investigates the historical progress of the semantic configuration of Shangti as the divine name of the Christian God in China by focusing on Chinese intellectuals' reaction to the strangely translated Chinese name of God.

"The author recalls how, after becoming very familiar with the Biblical Old Testament in its original Hebrew growing up, an encounter with an English language version led her on a ten-year project of examining various translations of the Old Testament and their histories, "--Novelist.

This is the fascinating and important story of how God’s Word came to East Africa. Beginning with the pioneering efforts of Krapf and Rebmann, Aloo Osotsi Mojola traces the history of Bible translation in the region from 1844 to the present. He incorporates four decades of personal conversations and interviews, along with extensive research, to provide the first comprehensive account of the translations undertaken in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. The maps and tables included assist the reader, as does a history of the Swahili language – its standardization, role as lingua franca, and impact on the work of translation. Mojola’s writing is a tribute to those who sacrificed much in their quest to see the word of God accessible to all people, in all places – and the many who continue to sacrifice for the peoples of East Africa. This book is a key contribution to the important and ongoing narrative of how God has met us, and continues to meet us, in our own contexts and our own languages.

Which translation do I choose? In an age when there is a wide choice of English Bible translations, the issues involved in Bible translating are steadily gaining interest. Consumers often wonder what separates one Bible version from another. The contributors to this book argue that there are significant differences between literal translations and the alternatives. The task of those who employ an essentially literal Bible translation philosophy is to produce a translation that remains faithful to the original languages, preserving as much of the original form and meaning as possible while still communicating effectively and clearly in the receptors' languages. Translating Truth advocates essentially literal Bible translation and in an attempt to foster an edifying dialogue concerning translation philosophy. It addresses what constitutes "good" translation, common myths about word-for-word translations, and the importance of preserving the authenticity of the Bible text. The essays in this book offer clear and enlightening insights into the foundational ideas of essentially literal Bible translation.