An Obadiah Slope Column
You have heard of or most likely used a Good News Bible or Contemporary English Version Bible, but did you know Australia has its very own easy-to-read Bible?
It’s intended for Aboriginal peoples, whose first language is their local one and translated for them by Wycliffe Bible Translators Australia. But it is great for anyone to read It is called the Plain English Version or PEV. (Obadiah thinks it is clever of Wycliffe to have come up with an acronym for an English Bible that no one else had used )
Here’s the Lord’s Prayer. Obadiah thinks it a great exercise to pray in these unfamiliar words.
“God, our father, you live in heaven. We want everyone to respect you.
“We want you to be everyone’s boss. We want everyone in the world to do what you want, just like everyone in heaven does what you want.
“Please give us the food that we need each day.
“Please don’t punish us for the bad things that we did, just like we don’t do payback to the people that did bad things to us.
“Don’t let anything push us to do bad things. And keep us safe from the devil, the boss over the bad spirits.”
Matthew 6:1-–13 PEV
You can find out more at https://aboriginalbibles.org.au/english-plain/ where you can get hold of epub and other electronic versions. It is also on the Youversion app
Obadiah knows that writing in active voice makes things easier to read. And the Grammarly app keeps reminding him. That’s true of the PEV.
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Making a Bible readable: Here’s what the translators cite as some their readability goals:
‘Language features include:
- No passive voice, since most Indigenous Australian languages do not have passive voice.
- Verbs and adjectives instead of most abstract nouns, since abstract nouns are rare in Australian languages.
- Shorter sentences to conform to the grammars of Australian languages.
- Where the original text has implicit information that would not be obvious to the target audience, that information has been made explicit.
- Modified vocabulary, according to what is commonly understood by the target audience.
- Where the original text has used figurative language that could be taken as literal by the target audience the meaning has been stated.”
Obadiah thinks that these are great ways to make a Bible readable. So if you are looking for a Bible to9 shock you out of over-familiarity with much-read passages, check out the PEV.
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Google is so (un) clever: Aussie Baptist theologian Graham Hill is an assiduous promoter of female theologians, trying his best to make them known. So to make it to the top of this Google list of “Women Theologians” must feel a little strange.
But good on you Graham for encouraging (female) others.
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Talking to the unsound: At The Other Cheek we ran a response to a critic of Obadiah’s ‘denomination” the Sydney Anglicans. That meant of course that we drew attention to the original criticism, by English academic and theologian Martyn Percy. And a few readers called us out for doing that.
The Other Cheek is devoted to, ahem, turning the other cheek. We will engage thoughtfully with critics of things we hold dear.
Obadiah is also convinced that evangelical Christianity and indeed the Bible have powerful arguments in favour.
This means we are happy to sit outside the Christian bubbles – while being rather too orthodox for some readers.