Translation is, in some ways, highly practical work. Translators spend a lot of time in Scripture, searching for the best way to express its concepts, stories, and teachings while discussing those possibilities with others. In this course, we are going to take a look at what it means to be theologically and missionally intentional in our work as translators. This means starting with an understanding of the importance and beauty of language and communication through God’s eyes and the history of his work in the world and throughout the Bible.

In this course, you will learn about the elements that go into "meaning-making," and you will start to think about how that can impact your work as a translator. You will be encouraged to do quite a bit of prayerful reflection, while also staying in dialogue with friends and family in your community. This work is meant to be an ongoing conversation, so let this just be a starting point.

In this course, you will be encouraged to do some reflection while also talking with friends and teammates in your translation community. You will also be encouraged to engage with the Bible in various exercises. All of the work in this course is meant to offer an initial "taste" into the world of translation, so let this just be a starting point.

In this course, you will learn how, throughout the Bible, human language has played a key role in God’s mission in the world, and it continues to be part of God’s mission today. As Paul said on his visit to Lystra and Derbe, God "has not left himself without testimony," without witness to his goodness. He continues to speak and reveal himself in many ways. In fact, God's desire to reveal himself, or make himself known, is one dimension of his mission in the world. God's people participate in his mission by using our languages—signed, spoken, or written—to be witnesses to his power and glory.

This course provides a sense of connection to the long history of Bible translation, starting with the LXX, the ancient versions, and other examples from different eras of Bible translation. Selected accounts of Bible translation work throughout history are presented as narratives in which aspects of the work that are relevant today are highlighted. In a mainstream historical approach, the focus is on making a full account of a historical event. By contrast, this course is an applied history, in which the focus is on making connections between the realities of today’s Bible translation work and those of historical translation work.

Translation often involves thinking through challenging issues. In this course, you will learn how translation is done in teams and in communities with the participation of pastors, church leaders, and reviewers. In other words, translation is not a solitary task but one that requires teamwork, relationships, and learning to work with other people.

This course addresses community engagement with Bible translation work primarily in contexts where Christianity is already an established part of the community and where Christian churches are already active. The primary goal of this course is to encourage and empower community involvement in the Bible translation project, so that, by God’s grace, the community can experience the widest possible impact in changed hearts and lives.

The purpose of this course is to expose you to various translation tools related to technology as well as basic principles and techniques for carrying out Bible translation using such tools. You will see a brief history of translation & technology, a survey of digital libraries for translators; a survey of some translation software tools; and practice working through Paratext and Render.

This course will guide you through the basics of the study of meaning (also known as semantics) and how meaning is influenced by genre in both the source and target languages of a translation. You can begin to identify the differences between the source and target languages so that you can make decisions in your translations to hold true to the source language's meaning while making the best use of the unique features of the target language. The focus of this course is on features of language that affect translation. The goal is to enhance your overall translation competence. Many of these features apply to multiple modes of communication.

In this course, you will explore how culture influences our understanding of languages. We will discuss the major elements of the cultural dimensions of understanding and communicating language.

This course provides an opportunity to put into practice what you have learned so far in this program, especially as part of the transfer competency of translators explained in Module 3: Introduction to Translation. The focus will be on developing an understanding of Ruth for translation by using comprehension strategies. The steps of this process will be presented with minimal discussion of theory as the emphasis here is on practice. The process discussed here can apply to any mode of translation or other portions of Scripture.

In this course, you will produce your first draft of the first chapter of the book of Ruth. To guide you in this process, you will learn about the seven tasks of translation, to search for multiple meanings in a passage of Scripture, translate the meaning of the source text into the target language, and check your work on a translation draft.

This is the final project of the Foundations in Bible Translation. Here you will begin your translation of Ruth.