The Institute for Bible Translation (IBT) has published the first-ever translation of the book of the prophet Daniel in the Avar language. The book of Daniel is one of the most widely read books of the Old Testament. It includes the well-known stories of Daniel in the lions’ den, the three young men in the fiery furnace, and the divine handwriting on the wall. It also contains many prophecies about the future.

The Avar language belongs to the Nakh-Dagestanian language family, with 956,800 speakers according to the 2021 census of the Russian Federation. It is also used as a language of interethnic communication by the Andic and Tsezic language groups. Avars live mainly in the Republic of Dagestan, where they constitute about 30% of the total population...

IBT has published a new book in the Abaza language called  Solomon's Wisdom. The Abaza are a people of the Northwestern Caucasus who live primarily in the Karachay-Cherkess  and Stavropol areas of southern Russia. The Abaza language belongs to Abkhaz-Adyghe group of Caucasian languages. It is one of the five official languages of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic. According to the 2010 census, the number of Abaza speakers in Russia is about 38,000.

The new edition is a collection of extracts from two Biblical books – 1 Kings and the book of Proverbs. The epigraph to the collection is the quote, "The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death" (Proverbs 13:14). It introduces the reader to the central theme of the collection: wisdom. Wisdom belongs to God; it is the moral law of the universe. It is woven into the foundation of things and everything in the world is subject to its laws. Whenever people do good deeds and make good decisions, they live in harmony with wisdom...

The Institute of Bible Translation continues to publish Scripture portions from the Old Testament in the Avar language. The Avars are the largest ethnic group in Dagestan, and also live in eastern Georgia and northern Azerbaijan. In Russia there are more than 900,000 Avars, acc. to the 2010 census. Most speak the Avar language, which belongs to the Nakh-Dagestanian group of the North Caucasus language family, as their mother-tongue.

The translation of the four books of Kingdoms (or 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings in the English tradition) was carried out by an IBT team that included experts in the Avar language as well as biblical scholars who checked the accuracy of the translation against the Hebrew original. The publication underwent scholarly review and was published with the stamp of approval of the Tsadasa Institute of Language, Literature and Art in Dagestan. Other Scripture portions translated into Avar by IBT include the Proverbs of Solomon (2005, 2007); the New Testament (2008); Genesis (2011); and Ruth, Esther and Jonah (2017).

According to the 2010 census, the number of speakers of the Abaza language in Russia is 37,831 people. The Abaza live primarily in the Karachay-Cherkessia region of the North Caucasus.

IBT’s Abaza translation project is working simultaneously on the books of the Old and New Testament. A bilingual Abaza/Russian edition of Jonah was published in 2019, and Ruth/Esther came out in 2020. An illustrated collection of "Gospel Parables" was printed in 2020. And now IBT has released the first full book of the New Testament - the Gospel of Matthew...

IBT’s Bible translation project in the Adyghe language continues its work with the recent publication of Gospel Parables. This edition had been previously published by IBT in many other languages of Russia, such as Agul, Bezhta, Dargi, Digor, Dungan, Even, Kabardian, Kumyk, Lak, Nenets, Nogai, Rutul, Siberian Tatar, Tatar, and Tsakhur.

Besides the collection of parables from Luke’s Gospel that IBT has used in previous editions -- the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:30-35), the Rich Fool (Lk 12:16-21), the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Lk 18:10-14), the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31), the Lost Sheep (Lk 15:3-7) and the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32) --  the Adyghe publication also includes several additional parables from Luke and Matthew: the Persistent Widow (Lk 18:2-8), the Sower and the Seed (Mt 13: 3-8, 18-23), the Unmerciful Servant (Mt 18:23-35), the Workers in the Vineyard (Mt 20:1-16), and the Talents (Mt 25:14-30).

Adyghe belongs to the Abkhaz-Adyghe language family of Caucasian languages. There are 117,500 speakers, most of whom live in the Republic of Adyghea in southern Russia.

In preparation for the future publication of the Pentateuch in Adyghe, the book of Deuteronomy was recently released in advance in electronic form, and now it is also in printed form. The first two books of the Pentateuch were printed 2005 (Genesis) and 2015 (Exodus), while Leviticus and Numbers are still in the translation process.

 IBT is happy to announce the release of a bilingual edition of Ecclesiastes in Adyghe and Kabardian, closely-related languages of the North Caucasus in the Russian Federation.

First, a little history. The official classification of Adyghe and Kabardian as separate languages appeared in 1922, when the Adyghe (Cherkess) and Karachay-Cherkess autonomous regions were formed inside the USSR. Until that time, the two languages were considered to be dialects of a single Circassian language. Over the past century, Adyghe and Kabardian have each developed independently (especially in their written forms), but some speakers of Adyghe and Kabardian still feel that they belong to the same language community. The Ecclesiastes publication was born out of a desire to preserve and develop the community between these two peoples.

IBT is pleased to announce that the Old Testament books of Ruth and Esther have been published in the Abaza language in a single edition. The first IBT publication in Abaza came out in 2019 – an illustrated translation of the book of Jonah, with a parallel Russian translation.

The Abaza language belongs to the Abkhaz-Abaza branch of the Abkhaz-Adyge group of Caucasian languages. L.I. Lavrov, one of the first researchers of the history of the Abaza people, notes that they were once a large people, with their own centuries-old history. Scholars believe that the Abaza and Abkhaz languages...

IBT has recently published the Old Testament book of the prophet Jonah in the Abaza language. This is the first OT book ever published in Abaza. Previously, IBT had published an excerpt from the Gospel of Luke, ch. 2, in 2000.

IBT has published another translation of Scripture portions in the Avar language, spoken as a mother tongue by over 700,000 people primarily in Dagestan. The new publication contains the books of Ruth, Esther and Jonah from the Old Testament. The Avar New Testament was published in 2008, and previously published OT portions include the book of Proverbs (2005, 2007) and Genesis (2011).

The present translation was prepared by a new translation team consisting  of an independent translator (working directly from the Hebrew original), a philological editor, a field tester, and a translation consultant. Further work is in progress on the historical books of the OT.