What can we learn from Bible translators about studying the Bible? When Peter* first begins translating a new book of the Bible into his own language, he doesn’t just dive in. He works hard to understand the passage thoroughly in order to produce a clear, accurate and natural-sounding translation. When we visited him and his colleagues in Southeast Asia, he pulled out a fat scrapbook full of his notes, diagrams and illustrations.
Here are a few of the ways Peter studies the Bible – and a few ideas for applying it to our own Bible reading.
Read multiple translations
The first step in Peter’s process is to read the whole book in the national language. Then he reads it in another local language, and also in English. He reads them multiple times and uses lots of translations, noting the differences between them.
