Nelson releases new audio Bible (NKJV): Word of Promise

NASHVILLE/LA -  The Word of Promise® Audio Bible features compelling narration by Michael York and the work of over 600 actors. Each beloved book of the Bible comes to life with outstanding performances by Jim Caviezel as Jesus, Richard Dreyfuss as Moses, Gary Sinise as David, Jason Alexander as Joseph, Marisa Tomei as Mary Magdalene, Stacy Keach as Paul, Louis Gossett, Jr. as John, Jon Voight as Abraham, Marcia Gay Harden as Esther, Joan Allen as Deborah, Max Von Sydow as Noah, Malcolm McDowell as Solomon, and many others.

Gospel Music Channel :: fastest-growing cable channel with 46.7 million

GA - From his little studio and offices here, the son of one of America’s early televangelists launched the squeaky clean Gospel Music Channel, potentially reaching more than 1 million homes with its first broadcast in October 2004.

In the years since, Charley Humbard and his investors can claim that what’s been called “MTV for Christians’’ has been the fastest-growing cable channel, now with 46.7 million subscribers, according to SNL Kagan, a media research and analysis firm.

Impact of technology on Bible translation – a perspective from UBS

The Netherlands — Bible translation has always been painstaking, laborious work. It is not just the difficulty of the work itself; there are also the technical challenges translators face. In the old days each draft had to be typed manually—four or five times!—before the project was completed. And once the text had received final approval, the entire manuscript had to be re-typed by the typesetter before it could be printed.

Changing Tools for Bible Translation
The revolution started around the mid-1980s, when more and more translation projects began making use of the personal computer. Thanks to the PC, a text had to be typed only once. After that, only the corrections needed to be entered and upon completion of the project, the text could be sent to the printer in digital format.

In those early days the software for typing and printing scripture files was designed almost exclusively by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (now SIL International). SIL also produced tools enabling translators to type special characters, check punctuation and accents, and create word lists.

Creating word lists is not the kind of task anyone would have seriously dreamed of undertaking until the personal computer arrived, but it is precisely its time-consuming and laborious nature that makes it so suitable for an electronic brain. What it involves is extracting all the unique words from a text file and displaying them in alphabetical order, or sorting them by the frequency with which they occur. This allows Bible translators—or editors of any kind—to improve the text by easily identifying spelling mistakes or literal errors and and correcting them.

But it was in 1997 that United Bible Societies (UBS) made a special new computer tool available to Bible translators. Called Paratext, one of its many remarkable features was that it allowed the computer to display the Bible’s source texts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek side-by-side on the computer screen. Furthermore, it offered dictionaries of the biblical languages; translations in languages from all over the world allowed users to draft their own translations and incorporated many other tools designed to improve the consistency of the text.

Since 1997, a number of other tools have seen the light. A research team at the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) spent many years developing software that would eventually facilitate comparisons of two versions of the same text in different languages, examining the internal structure of the words in both texts, and, on the basis of statistical analysis, determine which word in text A corresponds to which word in text B.

In addition, a tool was created that displays the source texts of the Bible in an interlinear format, together with the analysis of the structure of each word and its definition in English. This program allows users to perform relatively complex searches in the biblical texts. It also allows them to keep track of the way they have translated each word—thus enhancing the consistency of their translation. Finally, it provides links to other helpful digital resources such as the Logos Libronix Library.

Another extremely important tool now available is called Publishing Assistant. Developed by UBS with assistance from SIL, this program takes the completed translation produced in Paratext and converts it to the format required for the software used by typesetters in such a way as to speed up the typesetting process significantly.

Paratext 7.0
Paratext 7.0 was released in summer 2009, and at a workshop held just before the UBS Triennial Translation Workshop in Bangkok in June 2009 some forty staff from the four UBS areas were thoroughly familiarised with its new features so that they in turn can now train the Bible translators working in the field.

This new version has integrated most of the other tools mentioned with its existing functions, making it a piece of software that facilitates a translation project from its early stages right up to the moment the text is published.

Also, the security of the translated texts has been enhanced: it has become extremely easy to store a copy of the text in a safe place via the Internet or to back up the data on another device. All changes made in the course of a translation project are automatically documented and stored along with the project, so that different stages of the translation and versions of the text can be compared.

This new program benefits all three main categories of people involved in the process of Bible translation.

• Translators have access to all the resources they need to do their translation in a responsible way. They can add notes to specific passages, explaining their translation decisions; they can also list the questions they want to put to the consultant on his or her next visit. Tools to check that the text conforms to the spelling rules are also available. The program also allows users to keep track of the way they have translated particular biblical terms, depending upon the context. The computer can assist them in building lists of equivalent translations for checking purposes, saving a significant amount of time.
• Translation consultants can benefit from these tools as well. In addition to the features mentioned, they also have access to the so-called “interlinearizer,” a program that uses the calculations devised by the BFBS team to generate and format a back-translation of a given text. If the program miscalculates and offers an incorrect translation, the user can correct the data manually in order to “teach” the program how to analyse and translate each word or combination of words correctly. This enables the consultant, to a certain extent, to verify a translated text without having to depend upon either an oral or hand-written back-translation. This also means consultants can do part of their work from a distance.
• Typesetters will receive a text that is almost completely ready to be printed and requires substantially less time of processing.

So, the impact of technology on Bible translation can be summarized under three headings: time, quality, and cost-effectiveness.

1. Time. Thanks to the new technology, a translation project can progress faster. A word of caution is required though. Technology brings setbacks as well as advantages. Everyone who uses a computer knows about the frustrations of losing data when the hard drive crashes or a CD gets damaged. Software can even carry bugs that destroy important digital files. At the same time, using a computer carelessly brings risks as well. Making back-ups is essential, but it is something most people only learn to do—if they learn it at all—from hard experience. Efficient working procedures and proper training can help prevent unnecessary setbacks.
2. Quality. Of even more significance is the way the quality of Bible translations can be improved by the application of advanced technology. The tools now available help to produce Bible translations that: are better renderings of the original texts, are consistent where they need to be consistent, and contain fewer errors in both spelling and formatting.
3. Cost-effectiveness. It goes without saying that a translation project that is completed in less time is more cost-effective than other projects. There is more to say about this, however. One major factor in the high cost of translation projects is consultants’ travel. In many cases, the progress of translation projects has depended significantly upon how much time a consultant can give personally to the translators. Because of the financial problems affecting many Bible translation agencies in recent years, it has become more and more difficult for consultants to find the funds required to provide sufficient contact time with the translation teams. The new tools, however, can help remedy this problem. If a computer can generate a relatively reliable back-translation of a text, a consultant can do a lot of work at home. Meetings with teams will always be necessary—and desirable—but a combination of Paratext 7.0 and modern communication tools such as Skype can multiply the cost-effectiveness of a translation project in these increasingly difficult times.

Technology will keep on developing all the Bible translators’ tools, but perhaps the last word—for the time being—should be in praise of Paratext, firmly established as the jewel in the UBS crown as far as Bible translation is concerned.

(Source:

Dr. Reinier de Blois lives in Reeuwijk, The Netherlands, and works as a translation consultant for the United Bible Societies. He is the editor of the Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew and a member of the software development team that created Paratext.)

Knowledge of the Bible is declining, researchers say

Christianity in the Digital Space 2009 Conference

UK - More than 900 people, from faith and non-faith backgrounds, were surveyed at various locations throughout England and Wales about their knowledge of the Bible.

The research, carried out on behalf of CODEC (Communication in the Digital Environment), at St John’s College, Durham University, will be presented at a symposium, “Christianity in a Digital Space”, at St John’s on Tuesday, July 14. The study was funded by a consortium of national churches, charitable trusts and Bible agencies.

The initial findings formed part of the evidence behind the Methodist Church’s decision to designate 2011 as the Year of the Bible at its annual conference earlier this week (Wednesday, July 7).

The researchers say their findings show that the Church and politicians can no longer make assumptions about people’s knowledge of the Bible, which in under-45s is in decline.

Half of under-45s could not give accurate information about Samson and Delilah compared to a quarter of over-45s.

Similarly 33 per cent of under-45s couldn’t name anything about the Feeding of the 5,000 compared to 12 per cent of over-45s.

Younger interviewees told the researchers that the Bible was “old fashioned”, “irrelevant” and “for Dot Cottons” – in reference to the church-going EastEnders’ character.

Church-goers who were surveyed also showed a lack of Biblical knowledge with 72 per cent knowing nothing about Daniel in the Lions’ Den and 57 per cent unable to talk accurately about The Stilling of the Storm when Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee.

Sixty-two per cent didn’t know the parable of the Prodigal Son and 60 per cent couldn’t name anything about the Good Samaritan, initial research findings from The National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed.

Forty per cent didn’t know that among Christians the tradition of giving Christmas gifts came from the story of the Wise Men bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus.

While only five per cent of people could name all the Ten Commandments, 16 per cent couldn’t name any.

Reverend Brian D Brown a Methodist minister and Visiting Fellow in Media and Communication at St John’s College, Durham University, said: “We can no longer take it for granted that Bible stories which are part of our national heritage, and many assume are learned from the cradle, are known by the majority.

“The Church and political leaders should take serious note of the findings and recognise that we can not make the assumptions we used to make about the Bible and its place in contemporary people’s lives and culture.”

Reverend Brown added that “all was not doom and gloom” as, for example, 75 per cent of respondents knew about Moses and almost 70 per cent could talk about Judas.

Three-quarters of respondents said they owned a Bible and 31 per cent said the Bible was significant in their lives today.

“Many respondents said they still turn to the Bible for support and guidance at key moments,” Reverend Brown said.  “The Bible remains a hot topic of interest and there was an unexpected willingness of respondents to give over half-an-hour of their time to be interviewed on sensitive personal issues such as the Bible and religion.  This counters the prevailing view that people are unwilling to talk about religion and faith.”

FCC’s Wireless Microphone decision pending – churches prepare

NASHVILLE TN – (Source: Baptist Press)–Churches across the state and the country eventually will have to replace wireless microphone systems operating in the 700 megahertz range, but the Federal Communications Commission’s decision on the specifics of when and how is still pending.

The issue arose with the digital television switchover that was finalized in June. During analog days, broadcasters had access to channels 2-69, but the digital switch compressed them to channels 2-51, freeing up frequencies that the FCC auctioned off to national and local bidders.

Before the switchover, broadcasters like ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox were using channels 2-69 essentially as a gift from the government in exchange for airing local news and other programming. That’s still the case with channels 2-51.

Wireless microphones, meanwhile, were allowed to operate in that same frequency range without charge wherever they could find space. But now that the FCC has leased channels 52-69 to major corporations, that space — also known as the 700 MHz range — can’t be used for free.

“Now you’re looking at the wireless mics that were operating in the 700 MHz range that now are potentially not going to be able to operate because that spectrum has now been sold,” Matt Nodine, chief of staff for the wireless telecommunications bureau at the FCC, told Baptist Press July 9.
Nodine of the FCC said most of the 700 MHz wireless microphone systems already are off the shelves, and they aren’t being sold to average users anymore.

“Now the question becomes, ‘Do people have to replace the systems?’ There’s no grandfathering in,” Nodine said. “It’s not like you can sit there and continue to use the 700 MHz wireless for another 15 years until the system goes out.” 

A significant number of churches purchase equipment from a company called Shure, and Shure has announced a rebate program of up to $1,000 for the trade-in of Shure 700 MHz frequency band wireless systems and for any other manufacturers’ qualifying 700 MHz frequency band wireless systems and their related components until the end of the year. Customers may submit rebate forms with the purchase of certain replacement products, and more information is available at www.shure.com/rebate.

“Despite the fact that a final decision from the FCC is still pending, we want our customers to know that we’re here to help,” Mark Humrichouser, general manager of Shure’s Americas business unit, said.