October 18, 2022

On October 10-14 IBT conducted a webinar for Bible translation teams from IBT and partner organizations on the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. 14 participants from seven Bible translation projects (Avar, Kyrgyz, Tabasaran, Khakass, Tsakhur, Yakut and a North Caucasian project) gathered online for this training event. The webinar was taught by Luka Manevich, a biblical scholar and exegetical adviser in several Scripture translation projects, already familiar to many of the students from his expert instruction at previous webinars.

Autumn 2020 Newsletter

During the covid-19 quarantine, it was impossible to hold in-person training seminars, so IBT’s planned seminar on translating two of the Minor Prophets was conducted as a webinar. The texts of Habakkuk and Malachi make up only a small part of the full Bible, only 7 chapters in all. Let us mentally project ourselves into this webinar. Specifically, you and I are taking part in a discussion focused on an even smaller fragment – a single Biblical verse, Malachi 2:2. We see this text through a Zoom-conference window. The selected verse is not particularly difficult exegetically. But it turns out to be quite complex in terms of different perceptions of the same concepts held by different cultures.

Here is Mal 2:2 in the Revised Standard Version: “If you will not listen, if you will not lay it to heart to give glory to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings; indeed I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart.” What is a “blessing”? And a “curse”? When using these words today...

July 11, 2020

Several speakers of Tuvan, Altai, and Gagauz took part in a webinar on the production of Scripture-based media from July 7 to 11. The webinar focused on practical skills, such as how to use Vegas Movie Studio and Photoshop. 

June 22, 2020

IBT held a translation workshop on two of the Minor Prophets via Zoom on June 11-18. This was the first time in IBT’s history that one of our workshops has been conducted as a webinar.

The online format of this workshop was necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic and the related quarantine measures. Nevertheless, its advantages quickly became apparent. Many IBT translators are university instructors, and for them, June is traditionally a very busy time, full of summer courses and entrance exams. Translation team members who would not have been able to come to Moscow for a face-to-face seminar were still able to find time in their busy academic schedules for full participation in the virtual workshop.

October 18, 2019

On October 9-17, the Institute for Bible Translation held a workshop on Minor Prophets Translation Issues. It was attended by translation teams from eleven language groups (Adyghe, Avar, Balkar, Erzya, Kabardian, KumykKyrgyz, Mari, Tabasaran, Tajik, and Yakut). The discussion was headed by IBT consultant Andrei Desnitsky and by Yevgeniy Shved, the exegetical advisor in several of IBT's translation projects. The workshop focused on the text and translation issues of three minor prophets (Zephaniah, Joel, Haggai).