The Institute for Bible Translation has published the New Testament in the Lezgi language with an official stamp of approval from the Institute of Linguistics at the Russian Academy of Sciences. This marks the completion of many years of work by talented Lezgi writers and poets, theologians, and scholars of the Lezgi language, including Dr. B. B. Talibov, Dr. M. E. Alekseyev, Dr. N. A. Abdulgamidov, Dr. Marianne Beerle-Moore, and others.

Following quickly on the heels of last year’s presentation of the Kabardian translation of Proverbs in Nalchik, IBT has published yet another Scripture portion in Kabardian, the books of Daniel and Ruth in a single edition.

The Kabardian language, also known as Circassian or Cherkess, is spoken by approximately 516,000 speakers in the Russian Federation. It is one of the official languages of the Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachaevo-Cherkessia areas of southern Russia. Previous Kabardian Scripture editions include the New Testament, a revised version of Luke, Ruth, Jonah, and Proverbs. The current publication is a reprint edition of Ruth together with the first-ever translation of Daniel.

How should a translator approach the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, called “Torah” in Hebrew? How does one begin the translation of this foundational part of the Old Testament? How can translators avoid getting buried under the many minute details in the ancient text that modern readers are usually not aware of? How can one find the spiritual and meaning core of these texts? Without a doubt, any translator of the Pentateuch must face these questions.

IBT has translated and published three more books of the Old Testament in the Kalmyk language – Job, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs.

The Kalmyk people migrated from northwest China to the European part of Russia (the northwest corner of the Caspian Sea) in the early 17^th century. Their language is closely related to Mongolian. They are traditionally nomadic cattle-herders, and are the westernmost ethnic group that practices Buddhism as their traditional religion. According to the 2010 census of the Russian Federation, there are more than 180,000 ethnic Kalmyks, with about  80,000 of them still speaking their native language.

IBT has recently published two more Old Testament books in the Tabasaran language of Dagestan – Genesis and Proverbs. These follow on the heels of the Tabasaran New Testament (2010), Ruth/Jonah (2013), and Esther/Daniel (2016).
Because many Tabasarans are already somewhat familiar with several of the characters in Genesis from the Koranic tradition, the translation team used the familiar Tabasaran forms of their names in this edition. For example, Eve is known by the Tabasarans as Ghava, Noah as Nyugh, and Abraham as Ibraghim. Tabasarans also recognize the main author of Proverbs - the wise Suleyman, son of Davud. IBT hopes that both of these books will strike a resonant chord with many Tabasaran readers.

IBT’s list of Scripture texts published in the Evenki language of Siberia has a new addition – the book of Jonah, the Old Testament prophet who tried to run away from God and spent three days and nights in the belly of a giant fish. This book was prepared as a diglot edition, with the Scripture text given in both Evenki and Russian (Synodal version). The publication also includes 13 illustrations that were originally drawn for the Chukchi edition of Jonah, which came out earlier this year.

The Institute for Bible Translation has published a translation of the Gospel of Matthew in the Nenets language. Earlier published portions in the same language include Selected Passages from the Gospel of Luke (1995), Stories about Jesus (2003); the Gospel of Luke (2004); the Gospel of Mark (2010); the Gospel of John (2014).
The project to translate the Bible into Nenets began in the 1990s far away from the customary dwelling place of the Nenets. The first translation of the Gospel of Luke was completed by the linguist who lived most of his life in St. Petersburg. In 2001 the theological checker who learnt the language settled in Salekhard among the Nenets and built a new translation team. As a result, the new translation of the Gospel of Luke and then of the Gospels of Mark, John and Matthew was done by the Nenets living in their own traditional and cultural environment on the land of their ancestors...

In June 4-8, 2018, in the city of Nalchik, the Institute for Bible Translation held a seminar on "Translation of the Holy Scripture in Caucasian Languages: Scripture Engagement Stage". The seminar was attended by 30 participants from 9 IBT translation projects, namely Adyghe, Balkar, Dargi, Kabardian, Karachai, Ingush, Lak, Lezgi and Tabasaran.

 IBT has recently printed the Ingush translation of Genesis and Proverbs from the Old Testament.

According to the 2010 census of the Russian Federation, there are about 445,000 ethnic Ingush, the majority of which live in the Republic of Ingushetia in the North Caucasus region of Russia. Their language is closely related to Chechen and is a member of the Nakh language family. The Ingush writing system was developed in the early 20^th century, first based on the Arabic script, then Roman script, and finally Cyrillic script (in 1938).

Chukchi is an endangered language spoken by about 5,000 people on the eastern fringe of the Russian Federation. 2018 is a special year for the Chukchi Bible translation project because it has seen not one, but two Scripture portions within months of each other. The first was the revised translation of Luke’s Gospel, published as a diglot with Russian earlier this year. Now IBT has printed an edition of the book of the prophet Jonah, the first Old Testament book translated into Chukchi.

For many centuries, the Chukchi people have led a lifestyle that is inextricably tied to the sea, since their homeland is on the northeastern Pacific coast of Russia.  They are consummate sailors, fishermen, and whalers. This is why we hope that the book of Jonah, which involves a sea voyage and an encounter with a very large sea creature, will be of special interest to Chukchi readers.