Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone 559
Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about Every Tribe Every Nation, an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. 'For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices,' says Mark Howe. 'There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.' But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices, but whole new textual worlds."
Karen Armstrong - Golden Rule (Score:4, Informative)
Karen Armstrong in one of her TED [ted.com] talks put forth an idea that all religions should concentrate on the Golden Rule - the rule that Confucius created 3,000 years ago. Compassion. Orthopraxy as opposed to orthodoxy.
We should all act like a compassionate person instead of worrying about how others believe and if they believe "correctly" - which is lost on pretty much every practitioner of the religions of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
Re:Use LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
We all know LaTeX allows you to focus on the content and magically comes up with beautiful layouts. I mean the single best page layouts are always in the looks-the-same LaTeX format! And it's so intuitive to use!
Looks-the-same format? [tug.org] Wha...? =)
Also, funnily enough (and relevant to the article), one of the groups who is trying to improve (La)TeX's suitability for modern font technologies and supporting obscure languages is SIL [sil.org], a group that does, among other things, Bible translations. (The end result is XeTeX [sil.org], one of the best TeX versions out there right now if you want good PDF output and TrueType/OpenType support out of the box.)
Re:What, no Klingon version? (Score:2, Informative)
I'm sure someone has made one. Oh look: http://klv.mrklingon.org/
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Informative)
Well, yes. but I do not think that is actually a good thing, all things considered. For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever.
You mean the same Crusades where a group of people tried to regain access to the Holy Land after it was cut off? What do you think the Muslims would do if Israel cut off access to the "Dome of the Rock"? Would you blame them? When they attack Israel, would you call it "among the most evil human undertakings ever"?
From the wiki page on Crusades:
The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church, with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem. The Crusades were originally launched in response to a call from the leaders of the Byzantine Empire for help to fight the expansion into Anatolia of Muslim Seljuk Turks who had cut off access to Jerusalem.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:4, Informative)
Umm what? The the most evil undertaking ever? I am sorry that is complete and utter BS. There have been far more evil deeds done. I will grant you the Crusades were not very 'Christian' but they were no more evil than any other way. Also its worth pointing out that popular idea the Christian powers started it is wrong, Islam had been spread to those areas mostly by force years before, if anything the Crusades were a counter attack.
Do you think war for the cause of national security is necessarily evil?
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:1, Informative)
Actually the whole Bible boils down to:
God pursues sinful mankind through the offer of His crucified and resurrected Son, Jesus. If we repent and believe He will forgive our sins and return us to His family.
Not the first time... (Score:5, Informative)
Bible translators have also given us XeTeX, which is now an important part of the TeX ecosystem. And a bunch of useful (and good looking!) fonts: http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=FontDownloads [sil.org]
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Informative)
You would think that something the size of the Salvation Army would help form your opinion of a group more so than Mark in accounting.
Oh, it has. The Salvation Army shows me that Christians think it's okay to spread hate about a specific group of God-created individuals (ie., gays [wikipedia.org] and women who would dare to make their own perfectly legal decisions regarding reproductive health [wikipedia.org]) if you help a group of homeless people who think similarly to you (or are at least willing to go through the motions for a hot meal).
Sorry, I'm pretty sure Jesus said "Love thy neighbor," not "Love thy neighbor unless he's a fag or uses contraceptives." I'll start taking it seriously when you do.
Re:Karen Armstrong - Golden Rule (Score:5, Informative)
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Informative)
The existence of gods is undecidable. Therefore using it to justify anything is dodgy. Note that using the non-existence of gods is just as dodgy.
You should justify your actions by some reason wholly outside the realm of theogonies. And therefore religion is useless to guide human actions.
I further claim it is harmful. Because it uses an undecidable (and unlikely) premise which is not necessarily shared by all the recipients of the actions.
Re:Which bible will be translated? (Score:2, Informative)
Bible translators usually work from the current critical texts of the original languages, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland/UBS New Testament. Both are in revision, so fascicles of the Biblia Hebraica Quinta and the Novum Testamentum Editio Critica Maior will probably be consulted. The Deuterocanon (or Apocrypha) is translated from the best available sources, usually the editio altera of the Rahlfs Septuaginta and the Biblia Sacra Vulgata, or the larger editions of same (Goettingen Septuagint and the Benedictine Vulgate OT). Other ancient witnesses like the Samaritan, Targums, Syriac, and Coptic are usually noted in critical editions of the Hebrew and Greek when they are reasonably probable readings and present a translatable difference, but that is properly the domain of textual criticism, not translation.
As for which books are in and out, that depends on the group promulgating a particular translation.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:5, Informative)
The crusades were in their own way an example of the "good" in Christianity. A thousand years prior, Roman culture would have just plundered the Middle East for mercantilist gain, and felt no real need for an excuse. Christians felt like they needed an excuse, because Latin Christianity in the person of St. Augustine had stated very clear rules for when a Christian could morally participate in a war (the so-called "Just War Theory") and "plunder" wasn't on the list. Also, you seem to be proceeding on the assumption that Islam posed no real threat to Europe, and that a "flanking campaign" was illegitimate. The reality, if you go back and read the writings of people like Bernard of Clairvaux, is that they (a) felt that by attacking the Byzantines, the Muslims had attacked them (b) were acutely conscious of the fact that Byzantium might fall and that they would then have no buffer from the Saracens and (c) they were scared to death of Muslim aggression because Muslims had already conquered chunks of formerly "Christian" territory (i.e. Spain.)
The whole crusades as a criticism of Christianity thing simply doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, but that doesn't stop devotees by proxy of Bertrand Russell from repeating it to the point of nausea. What I wish such people would do is actually learn some real history and stop flapping their gums until they do.
Sources: Ph.D. in New Testament and early Christianity, active interest in subsequent church history.
Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr (Score:5, Informative)
That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament.
It's based on both, and if you are in the least bit cognizant of the general theology and history of Christianity, then you know that you are lying through your teeth.
The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your point may have made sense if this were an article about religion. But since it was an article about Christianity specifically, you just showed your ignorance. You don't have to believe the story I just quoted above, but you should understand that Christianity is not about what you seem to think it is. It's called the NEW Testament for a reason.
Oh, so your group pulled the OT out of your bibles? You ignore all of the supposed "prophesies" in the OT which point to your supposed "savior?" There is no reference to a list of commandments in your church? How come I think you are still lying through your teeth?
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Informative)
Superstition kills and maims opposing cultures. It's quite a weapon.
Kingdom of Granada != Muslim Empire (Score:4, Informative)
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Informative)
Atheism in a nutshell.
Thanks.
Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. That would be nihilism. You will not find many nihilists, they tend to suicide early on. However, thanks for bringing it up, what you just said is the BIG LIE perpetrated by religion, namely that without it there is nothing. As an atheist, let me assure you that is far from the truth. Ethics are still something that requires a lot of contemplation. Joy of life is to be had. Goals can be set and reached and insights can be gained. Actually, being an atheist is a bit like being a believer, but with less limits and without some stupid fairy-tales to self-indoctrinate yourself with.
Re:Which bible will be translated? (Score:4, Informative)
The King James? The Eastern Orthodox? The Coptic? Hebrew? Syriac? Which apocrypha will be in or out? Will they charge extra for those? Get back to me on that, willya?
According to their list of included translations [youversion.com], ETEN's "YouVersion" reader provides 27 English translations so far. This includes the King James that you mentioned, and two Roman Catholic translations (CPDV and Douay-Rheims) which include several Apocrypha not included in the Protestant translations. I'm not sure what you mean by the "Eastern Orthodox Bible": there is a new translation to English by that name [orthodoxanswers.org], with the New Testament just released and the full release due later this year, so that obviously hasn't been included yet. There is no Coptic translation included yet, but there are three Coptic Church groups so far listed on the YouVersion groups pages, so that's clearly not a problem for them. Hebrew and Syriac are also not available yet. There is no charge for any of the included translations, and they are working to add more translations to the list: according to their "vision" page [everytribe...nation.org] they're working with other Bible groups to pull in more translations.
Re:Use LaTeX (Score:5, Informative)
SIL, a group that does, among other things, Bible translations.
Offtopic, but they also send people out to very remote areas -- one of their missionaries lived with and studied an Amazon tribe [newyorker.com] and learned some things that challenged some very fundamental western assumptions about universals in human language.