This evening was the special Christmas song service at our local church. We were filled with visitors, mostly young families and college age, which is also the makeup of our church. We are, in many ways, a perfect example of the oft observed sociological principle that a most churches tend to reflect the age of the pastor plus or minus ten years. Our pastor is young, 27, and the bulk of our congregation is between 17 and 37 and the children God has given them.
It was a great time of worship and at one point, we sang a portion of “The Gloria.” Immediately, my mind went into translation and meditation mode. “Gloria in excelsis Deo” is Latin for “Glory to God in the highest”. So here’s the trajectory of my thought.
- Jesus spoke Aramaic.
- His disciples also spoke Aramaic.
- Some of them may have also spoken Greek, because it was the trade language of the world.
- Some may have also spoken Latin, because Rome ruled Palestine and the language of the empire was Latin.
- The early church grew first from and among Jews who also spoke Aramaic or Hebrew but also among Hellenized Jews, who were Greek speaking.
- The New Testament was written in Greek.
- But as more and more Gentiles came into the church, the first language of the majority was neither Aramaic/Hebrew or Greek but Latin.
- A hymn in Latin represents 250 years of growth and development of the church.
- I began to think of all the languages to which the Bible has been translated.
- And I began to weep at the sweep of God’s love for the world and the wonder of gospel advance.
When I got home, I looked up the following:
As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages. (Wikipedia)
According to Wycliffe, of the 7,117 known living languages, complete Bibles exist in 698. These languages account for 5.6 billion, or 72.7% of the people on earth. New Testaments have been produced in an additional 1,548 languages, and Scripture portions in another 1,138. Overall, all or part of the Bible has been translated into 3,384 languages. Of the remaining 3,969 languages, 707 have work in progress, 1,147 are not vital enough to be good candidates for translation, and 2,115, accounting for 171 million of the world’s 7.7 billion people, or 2.2% of the people on earth, still need for translation or preparatory work to begin.
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