Oral Bible Translation and Biblical Performance in Southern Siberia

A Design for a Performance-Based Oral Bible Translation in the Southern Altai Language (Siberia)

Bronwen Cleaver

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9798385236381
  9798385236398
• eBook ISBN:
  9798385236404
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This book is about designing a contextualized performance, based on biblical passages translated by oral Bible translation, to give oral-preference learners in the Republic of Altai the best possible access to Scripture. It presents a model for other oral Bible teams to translate and perform biblical texts in culturally relevant ways. The work explores key issues: the internalization process, orally translating non-narrative genres, extra-linguistic exegesis, using local poetic features in oral biblical translations, creating notes for translation teams, and integrating audience responses into the translation. A comprehensive literature review covers orality, biblical literacy, performance criticism, functional translation, complexity theory, multimodality, and hospitality theory. Research includes interviews with oral Bible translation teams using internalization and studies of Altai epic poetry, featuring interviews with Altai epic singers and musicians. The book culminates in describing the crafting of an oral presentation based on the Altai epic story genre and its evaluation by local Altai audiences in focus groups. This demonstrates how oral Bible translation can effectively engage communities. This approach ensures that Scripture is not only translated but also communicated in a manner that resonates deeply with the cultural and oral traditions of the audience, making it more accessible and impactful.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• List of Abbreviations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Theoretical Framework
• 3. Oral Bible Translation
• 4. Biblical Performance Criticism
• 5. The Poetic Features of Judges 4 and 5 for Oral Translation and Performance
• 6. The Poetic Features of Psalms 1, 100, and 133 for Oral Translation and Performance
• 7. Altai Epics and Ochy-Bala
• 8. Translating the Texts into Altai
• 9. Altai Performances
• 10. Conclusions
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Appendix 5
• Appendix 6
• Appendix 7
• Appendix 8
• Appendix 9
• Appendix 10
• Appendix 11
• Appendix 12
• Bibliography