Beibl.net - An Invitation to read the Bible in Welsh from Arfon Jones
2004
is a year of celebrating both the Word and the Spirit.
It’s the 100th anniversary of the last great Welsh Revival
when God’s Holy Spirit moved through this land in extraordinary ways.
It’s also the 200th anniversary of the Bible Society, and
one only has to mention the names of Mary Jones and Thomas Charles to be
reminded of its significance in Wales. It
is also the 400th anniversary of the death of William Morgan whose
Welsh translation of the Bible appeared in 1588.
William Morgan said that, “religion will remain hidden and unknown,
unless it is taught in the language of the people.”
How true! For the good news
of Jesus to spread and touch hearts, there must be meaningful communication. In the words of the crowd that gathered together on the Day
of Pentecost, “how is it that each of us hears them in his own native
language?” The Holy Spirit
touched the people’s hearts through meaningful communication. And that is the vision of beibl.net.
If
you don’t speak Welsh you might not have heard of beibl.net.
beibl.net is an original paraphrase-translation of the New Testament in
simple Welsh. It’s not a
revision of any previous Welsh version, and neither is it a translation of any
of the English versions.
beibl.net is part of the ministry of GiG. GiG (Gobaith i Gymru – Hope for Wales) was set up in 1999 to promote evangelism, support local churches and encourage vision and growth, particularly amongst the Welsh-speaking churches. GiG was established to serve the churches and encourage missionary vision and activity. The focus is not on being a ‘para-church’ group that does particular work on behalf of the churches, but on serving and resourcing, and working in co-operation with local churches. Our two key concepts are servanthood and co-operation.
With these principles in mind, GiG was very aware of the need for a simple, colloquial translation of the Scriptures in Welsh. The New Welsh Bible is an excellent translation; however the language level seeks to be of the highest literary standard, and unfortunately that is a problem for many ordinary Welsh-speakers. Many young people find it hard to understand, and the same is true of adult Welsh learners that have only been taught ‘spoken’ Welsh on Wlpan courses. So beibl.net started as an attempt to convey the message of the New Testament in simple colloquial Welsh. It is targeted primarily at young people (especially those who have no church or chapel background), and also at adult Welsh learners who have completed the Wlpan course. However, since its launch on the internet at the end of March 2002, there has been an incredibly positive response to beibl.net, and we have found that it has a much wider readership, including primary school children, first language Welsh-speaking adults, and many Church leaders.
Beibl.net is an attempt to express the meaning of the original text in language that’s
familiar
to ordinary people, so it tries to avoid vocabulary and idioms that are
unfamiliar outside ‘Christian’ circles.
Our hope and prayer is that it will act as a ‘bridge’ to help many
Welsh-speaking people understand the message of the New Testament. It’s
an oft stated fact that the New Testament was written in what is known as
‘koine’ Greek. This was not
classical Greek, but the ordinary language of the marketplace, and this is what
beibl.net seeks to do in Welsh – an ‘easy to understand’ New Testament.
But
why has beibl.net not been published? The internet was initially chosen as its means of
distribution for several reasons:
1.
IT(Information technology) has become a crucially important means of
communication in our day, and is increasingly used in education.
2.
there is vast potential for continuous revision and development of the
translation, and the rest of the website’s content.
The internet is very versatile.
and
3.
it means that beibl.net is
available free of charge to anyone that has access to the internet.
e.g. schools will not have
to incur the expense of buying ‘hard copies’.
The
only part of beibl.net that has been published so far is the Gospel of Luke.
Scripture Union, Coleg y Bala and GiG worked together on the
publication of an attractive full colour version of Luke’s Gospel for young
people. This was published last
year under the title Luc@Beibl.net,
and 18,000 copies were distributed free of charge to year 6 and 7 pupils in
Welsh schools. The response was so
positive that there are now moves towards publishing a printed version of the
whole New Testament.
But
beibl.net is more than a translation of the New Testament.
It is a project to
develop a modern interactive website with extensive resources on it to help
people read and understand God’s Word. So
far, it includes simple articles on the background of every
New Testament book, notes on every single chapter, Bible meditations, short
biblical sketches, and resources for Schools such as assembly ideas and RE
lessons. The text is fully
searchable, and there are information boxes that give you the source of every
single quotation and many other allusions to the Old Testament that are found in
the New. And there’s much
more on the way, including fymeibl.net (which means ‘my beibl.net’).
fymeibl.net will offer people Bible reading plans and daily meditations
that are totally personalized. People
will be able to ‘log on’, choose their preferred Bible reading plan, and add
their own personal notes as they read the Scriptures every day.
Although there is a host of material planned to be included on the Website eventually, the Scripture text itself will always remain the backbone of site. We eventually hope
to
include a similar paraphrase-translation of the Old Testament scriptures on the
Website. However, in and of themselves, all these much needed
resources in Welsh are not enough to ensure ‘meaningful communication’ of
the gospel. For the gospel to touch
lives, ‘meaningful communication’, must include the touch of God’s Spirit.
That touch is needed in the translation process as well as when an
individual reads the Word. It has to be Word and Spirit together every step of the way!
So, please do pray for beibl.net.