We don’t just eat here. We’ve tucked away some great family memories, but eventually, we have to gather at the table for our sustenance. Why not make it delicious!?

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However, the Old and New Testaments were both composed more often for the ear than for the eye.  There is careful attention to rhythm, plays on words, even rhyme schemes.  Too often, we Bible translators have translated trying to get the meaning across forgetting about how the thing sounds.  Actually artistry of composition is part of meaning.  Artistry communicates!

So what? Well the Komba people are very attuned to artful sounds and structures (poetics) in their speech.  So when our team translates we want to try and make the thing sound especially in places where the original sounded lovely to its original hearers.  This is no easy task.

Personally, I like a lot of the ideas put forth by Dr. Ernst Wendland for translation called Literary Functional Equivalence (LiFE).  Here is an partial list of his publications.

What we can say about Pentecost is that the Spirit chose to translate into each language thereby at once relativizing one language’s value over against another and at the same time ensuring each language’s uniqueness.  Given that, it makes it even more enriching to translate because not only is something “lost in translation” but we can even say as concepts are functionally translated that there is gain in translation!  Especially as translators, by his grace, follow the footsteps of the Spirit in translating the wonders of God in their own languages.

Here are some of the highlights of  what we saw

• many original Dead Sea Scrolls fragments. (I nearly set off the alarms leaning over the glass case trying to read the Hebrew on one manuscript!)
• facsimilie of the great Isaiah scroll – awesome!  (Find out how it was purchased through an ad in the Wall Street Journal here.)
• John C. Trever’s fortuitous photography of the great Isaiah scroll.  His story was very interesting. Many small details seemingly hap and stance resulted in what is now the best facsimile of the original mansucript of the Isaiah scroll. His photos remain the best source for study of the scroll. You can read about Dr. Trever’s life here. Scroll down to the Introduction to read about the production of the facsimile through the work of Dr. Weston Fields
• According to the exhibit presentation we very likely saw the ossuary of Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21-22)
• Great archeological pieces of the intertestamental era and an enlightening presentation of the history that led up to the New Testament era and the production of the DSS manuscripts and their storage near the Dead Sea and the community of Qumran.
• A nice representation of the continued life of the Bible and Bible Translation including German, English, Algonquin and Ho Chunk (native American language translations) and even a nice display of the new St. John’s Bible being produced on parchment in a similar fashion to many of the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves.

Drinking water straight from the tap: Even after 3 weeks the kids are tentative and double check first. (We filter ours in Ghana.) More than once I’ve heard, “You mean, you can just drink it from there (pointing to faucet)?”

Drinking fountain: We first came across this phenomenon at the airport. Suddenly the kids were very thirsty and had to get drinks every 5 minutes until our flight left (delayed by an hour). It’s still very exciting to come across them at other places. We’re still learning how to use them.

Ice maker/dispensers: The kids were really giddy when they saw that you could put a cup up to the freezer door at their cousins’ home and magically fill the cup with either water, ice cubes, or crushed ice. We rarely have ice in Ghana. It’s kind of a treat. I might make a couple individual ice cubes for the kids to use as they please. They don’t last long. To get a full cup of ice at the touch of a button is almost beyond comprehension.

Still to be experienced at their grandparents’ home—the hot tub and sauna.

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