God's Story - A Philippines Translator's Evaluation

From SPARK

Contents 1 Brief Summary 2 Introduction 2.1 Key Factors 2.1.1 Positives: 2.1.2 Negatives: 3 What Was Done 4 Results 4.1 Helpful Information from the Author

Brief Summary

This is an evaluation of the God's Story by a translator preparing to record it in a minority language.

Introduction

The fact that there are more negative comments than positive may give the wrong impression. God’s Story is well done, but I wanted to speak in detail to some of the problems involved in translating it adequately into another language.

Key Factors

Positives:

1. It covers a lot of material, showing (as intended) the central position of Christ in God’s plan.
2. The choice of Biblical personages to include is good for the most part.
3. The pictures are well done, and presented in such a way as to communicate well. My co-translator was very pleased with them. It was the first time that she had seen still pictures used in this way, and she commented that it was almost like watching moving pictures.
4. I appreciated the fact that Jesus is shown in profile or silhouette. This is especially important for Muslim audiences, not because they object to Jesus (they do not object), but because of the hesitation to depict any of the prophets visually.
5. Dean Jones’ narration is excellent, but of course that is completely lost when dubbed into another language.

Negatives:

1. The pace of the video is very fast, understandably so to include as much material as possible, but I wonder if it isn’t too much material too fast for audiences that do not have the background to follow it. There are too many prophecies stated too fast and moving back and forth from one to the other. However, if the video is shown in sections and combined with teaching, then the prophecies could be explained and thus be more meaningful to the audience.
2. Although my co-translator liked the pictures, it was clear that she was beginning to lose some interest in the middle of the CD after the story of Moses and the Exodus.
3. Regarding the pictures, some of them did not communicate what was intended.
   1. My co-translator did not understand the pictures of satanic worship
   2. She was also confused when suddenly in the midst of narration about Jesus, a picture of Pharaoh was shown. Western audiences perhaps can understand the connection, but not necessarily less ‘sophisticated’ audiences. In places there is a little too much jumping back and forth in the pictures shown.
4. There were a few points of interpretation and teaching which do not have Scriptural support, most notably naming Lucifer. This is an old church interpretation which is probably not correct. The impression is also given that the rebellious angels looked around for a leader and chose Lucifer, while the Scripture seems to indicate that Satan fomented the revolt. Other things I noticed: the script says that God wrote the 10 commandments as He spoke them. There is no scriptural basis for this. The script says that the soldiers at the crucifixion gave Jesus something sour to drink as a mocking gesture, whereas commentators say that the ‘sour wine’ was a common drink of the masses and was good for quenching thirst. The script says that the soldiers at the tomb ran away. Scripture says that they became ‘as dead men’. Why pass on incorrect teaching to other cultures who have no basis on which to judge? Many of these cultures will tend to accept as true most anything they see in a video. Therefore any such material as this ought to be checked carefully for accuracy to the Bible!
5. Lastly, it would be nice to have a version of God’s Story for Muslims. There are two things in particular that I noticed that could be a problem for Muslims.
   1. The repeated showing of the silhouette of Jesus on the cross. It looks just like a crucifix which smacks of idolatry to Muslims, especially to those who live in proximity to Catholics.
   2. The ending with the prayer. Seems innocent enough to Christians, but to Muslims it will seem like proselytizing or converting, putting pressure on them to change religions, which is one of the quickest ways to provoke and create opposition. Leave the challenge to faith to the workers who will use the video. Let them be sensitive to the Holy Spirit to know how to lead the viewers to faith.

What Was Done

Results

Helpful Information from the Author

By: JoAnn G.

Date entered: March 2008

Date range of story: 2007 - 2008

Location: Philippines