It’s an incredible time to be alive, especially getting to watch the advances of AI in various fields. While I realize that there’s probably a sizeable percentage of this audience that thinks AI is the opposite of progress, I want to introduce you to a tool that you might find useful. It’s called NotebookLM by Google, and it’s free for you to start using today. You can create notebooks and fill them with source material of all kinds: links, videos, PDFs, pasted text, and other docs. The AI...

I co-wrote this article with Conley Owens for sellingJesus.org. It was originally published on the Selling Jesus podcast. "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ" (2 Cor. 2:17, ESV). This highly technical discussion is not an easy listen, and it's recommended that you complement it with the visuals in the written version of the article. That said, the primary source of interest in this...

An important decision a translator makes is whether or not to domesticate/contextualize/localize the foreign elements of a text. In this episode, we will discuss the concepts of domestication and foreignization in Bible translation, and explore some of the factors that translators should consider when making this decision. As we’ll see, foreignness in translation demands a delicate balance between fidelity to the source text and accessibility to the target audience. Here's the full text of...

The other day I ran across a fascinating article written by a Cambridge PhD student who memorized the entire book of Job in Hebrew as part of her dissertation research. The article was entitled Learning to love: The surprising joy of memorising Job, and after reading it I knew I wanted to learn more about the process and the insights she gleaned from the experience. So I reached out to her and she kindly agreed to grace us with a nerdy chat on Job. Ellie Wiener particularly takes joy in...

"Accuracy is often thought to be the main criterion for good translation, but acceptability is just as important." Drew Maust is a translation consultant and one of the editors of the SIL Journal of Translation. He kindly agreed to read and share a recent article of his on this podcast. A big thanks to Drew for taking the time to record his insights for us to learn from! Despite the objective advantages of the metric system—such as its simplicity and global adoption—Americans are...

In this episode we have the pleasure of talking to biblical scholar Dr. Drew Longacre. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Birmingham and has recently been a researcher at Cambridge Digital Bible Research on the Psalms: Layer by Layer project, which we did an episode on in the past. From 2016–2021, he was the postdoctoral researcher on the a project called “The Hands that Wrote the Bible: Digital Palaeography and Scribal Culture of the Dead Sea Scrolls”, where he applied the latest...

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Bitcoin represents a transformative tool for missionaries, offering a secure, transparent, and ethical alternative to traditional financial systems. By embracing Bitcoin, missionaries can protect themselves and those they serve from economic instability and corruption. Moreover, Bitcoin’s alignment with biblical principles of fairness and justice makes it a fitting choice for those committed to upholding these values in their work. This single episode is not meant to convince you to...

Am I dogmatic about using "Yahweh" as opposed to other pronunciations? What about Yehovah? How do we end up with the pronunciation of "Yahweh" anyway? Doesn't the Septuagint provide conclusive evidence for how to pronounce the divine name? These are some closing thoughts and loose ends I wanted to address. ⁠⁠Read the book⁠⁠⁠⁠. ⁠⁠⁠⁠workingfortheword.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠my books⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ music⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Hebrew ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠| ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠academic...

The previous episodes in this series considered God’s desire for us to use his name, how the pronunciation was lost, and how the New Testament writers handled the matter. It remains, finally, to consider how it has been handled by translators since the Reformation. In that time there have been various departures from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate, which rendered the divine name as Dominus (“Lord/Master”), while others have maintained the tradition, which goes back to the Septuagint. Read the...

We know that the inhibition for pronouncing God’s name came before Christianity, although we don’t know how widespread it was. It’s possible that rendering the divine name as “Lord” (kurios) had already been a strong tradition for centuries by the time we get to Jesus and the apostles. What’s clear is that the New Testament manuscripts we have all follow the tradition that the Septuagint set, which was to substitute the title “Lord” (kurios) for God’s name (YHWH). So, the fact that the New...

This is part 2 of a short series on the divine name. It’s important to recognize right up front that we simply do not know with absolute certainty how God’s name was originally pronounced. The common English pronunciation of “Yahweh” is an educated guess, but we’ll never know for sure how it sounded when God spoke it to Moses. Two key things prevent us from knowing: (1) Hebrew was written without vowels for many centuries, so we’re left with only four consonants: YHWH, and (2) people...

A few years ago I did a series on the pronunciation and translation of the divine name here on this podcast. It was a long series that eventually turned into a book. Now, a while back the Text and Canon Institute asked me to do a four-part series on the divine name for their website, which forced me to significantly condense the highlights of the book into smaller, less technical articles. So as a service to anyone who may not have the time to read them, or who may not have the time to...

Back in 2021 I had Dave Brunn on this podcast to talk about his amazing book One Bible, Many Versions. If you haven’t heard parts 1 and 2 of that interview, I highly recommend going back to listen when you finish this episode. Dave recently published an article titled Gender in Bible Translation: A Crucial Issue Still Mired in Misunderstanding. It would be an understatement to say that this is an important article for the Church, particularly English-speaking evangelicals. So when I saw his...

This is the second in a two part series that aims to introduce you to the work of Dr. Reinier de Blois and honor some of the incredible labor of love he has poured out for the sake of the Bible translation community and movement. Specifically, I want to highlight his work in Hebrew lexicography as he nears the end of a project that has spanned over two decades; and that is the creation of a new ⁠semantic dictionary of biblical Hebrew⁠. Learn more about Dr. Reinier de Blois in the previous...

This is the first in a two part series that aims to introduce you to the work of Dr. Reinier de Blois and honor some of the incredible labor of love he has poured out for the sake of the Bible translation community and movement. Specifically, I want to highlight his work in Hebrew lexicography as he nears the end of a project that has spanned over two decades; and that is the creation of a new semantic dictionary of biblical Hebrew, which is available under an open creative commons license....

This is an episode about consulting, specifically addressing some challenges involved with the current consulting model, and possibly some ways it could improve. It also covers some difficulties that may arise when mentoring a consultant in training (CIT) or being mentored as a CIT. Recently I supervised a CIT doing practice checking, and I want to share some lessons learned from that experience. workingfortheword.com⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠my books⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠twitter⁠⁠ |⁠⁠ music⁠⁠ |⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Hebrew ⁠⁠| ⁠⁠academic...

I want to introduce you to an initiative called Global Bible Tools, which aims to provide the global Church with access to the same advanced biblical language tools that the West enjoys. This includes lexicons, grammars, and text critical information. In this podcast we'll discuss the importance of these tools for serious study of the Bible and Bible translation, and propose a way to make them more accessible to the majority world. Contact me at...

In my vast array of interactions with intelligent people working in Bible translation, I have learned something: most approach the issue of copyright out of complete ignorance, and sometimes with a great deal of pride and irrationality. I used to be one of those people. So I'm doing my best to share what I've learned. "For nearly a century, copyright legislation has been subtly but effectively applied, misused and abused in regard to the Word of God in order to chain the Bible to a new...

"For the people by the people." That is the slogan of The Word for the World, which is a Bible translation org that we’re going to be learning about in this episode. They exist to equip language groups for mother tongue translation and literacy development. Since 1981, they have been working towards this goal through translation, training, literacy, and partnerships with like-minded organizations. Their prayer is that every person will know that God loves them and speaks their language! Our...

As I said in the last episode, I’ve been working on the Selling Jesus project, which is now well underway with a ton of content. Please check out the website sellingJesus.org and you’ll find enough reading material to keep you busy all Christmas vacation. Also, it would mean the world to me if you would help boost the views of the first Selling Jesus video on YouTube, which is on the homepage of sellingJesus.org, and share it around. I’ll be releasing the next long video in the series soon,...

This episode will just be a brief announcement that I’ll be taking some time away from this podcast in order to focus on some other important things right now. I may be posting sporadically, but I’m not sure how often. There are a lot of episodes I’d like to do in the future. Book mentioned: God and Mammon by Noll Song at the end with lyrics and subtitles workingfortheword.com | my books | twitter | music | Hebrew | academic articles | facebook | contact | download all episodes for...

MA in Bible Translation from Nida Institute: https://www.nidaschool.org/ma-bible-translation Seed Company Residency Program: https://seedcompany.com/residency/ Wycliffe's convergence program for training consultants: https://www.wycliffe.org/blog/posts/6-ways-convergence-will-prepare-you-to-become-a-translation-consultant Word for the World's training programs: https://training.twftw.org/ Mekane Yesus Seminary: https://mekaneyesusseminary.org/ SIL Translation CiT Funding Guidelines: ...