Philosophy

Essential Fluency

Biblical, cultural, and language fluency are required to produce a good translation. Technology amplifies these qualities, but can exacerbate their loss when they are missing.

The Risk of Poor Translation

Unfortunately, it is possible to produce and distribute a "bad translation" that severely skews the message of the Bible. Technology can help prevent this, but not alone, and not unless each translation team is committed to it as well.

Local Authority

Translation teams should not have their choices dictated to them by us or anyone unfamiliar with the target languages and cultures.

Open is Best

We advocate for not copyrighting a Bible translation and making it freely accessible, but we do not require it.

Guidelines

We have loose guidelines because we trust that those closest to the target language are more equipped than anyone to make translation choices, but we do not allow:

Non-Biblical Text

We may support this sometime, but for now please use it only for Bible translation.

Stolen Drafts

You may not use this platform to "autocomplete" the rest of a Bible based on data you do not have permission to use.

Human Oversight Required

A human that knows the target language must at some point read all text drafted here.

Our Translation Philosophy