Bibliologia

So there I was in our Monday morning men's Bible study and Kurt was telling us about these Russian pastors who spoke at his church in Council the day before. They do training of pastors in Russia, etc. 

So being the faithful Learning Technologies guy that I am I mentioned that we have a lot of Russian training resources like the pastor's library on a CD called Bibliologia. He's interested and we arrange for me to get him a copy of it.

Two days later when we are arranging for me to give him Bibliologia, he tells me that he spoke with the pastor in town who works with them and they already have it--it's being used all over the region and is the go-to resource for pastors in that region of Russia. So no thanks, we don't need your copy.

 I was sort of disappointed because I wanted to be the resource guy and show my Bible study mates that Learning Technologies is a nifty place to work because of these kinds of opportunities to resource remote pastors.

 Of course, at the same time I realized what a great thing it is that MAF-LT's Bibliologia was now just a standard part of the Russian pastor's bookshelf and was doing exactly what we had designed it to do!

                                                               Nifty.

Russian Bible Society Grants Permission for Distribution of New Russian Good News Bible on Bibliologia Reference CD

On March 4, 2002, Bibliologia Bible Reference CD made a significant step forward. For several months we had been trying to get permission to put the newest and most accurate Russian Bible translation on the CD. Our good friend and digital publishing partner, Alexei Bychkov, interceded on our behalf with the Russian Bible Society. He told them of the validity of our purpose and the great need of remote Bible students to be able to access a good translation of the Bible. At long last we were granted permission. Dr Bychkov is the president of Moscow Evangelical Christian Seminary and a board member of the Bible Society. He had previously gotten us permission to put the Barkley New Testament Commentary on our CD.

The Bible Society has a rich history in its goals of bringing the Word of God to the Russian-speaking world. The following is a history of the Bible Society and the history of this new translation as given by Dr. Anatoly Rudenko, executive director.

The Russian Bible Society was founded in St Petersburg with the permission and support of Tsar Nicholas the First and help from the British Bible Society in 1813. This was three years before the founding of the American Bible Society. In 1824 the first Russian modern language New Testament was published. The society also published partial Bibles in 24 other non-Slavic languages. Due to pressure from religious and political groups the Bible society was closed in 1826.

Even though the work of this initial Russian Bible Society was the foundation for the later published Russian Synodal Bible, the Society was not allowed to exist as an organization again until 1991. In that year a small group of Orthodox and Protestant leaders gained permission to reestablish the society. Full information about its current projects and activities can be found at its website www.biblia.ru.

In 1986 a well known Greek and Russian scholar, Valentina Kuznetsova, started a new translation of the New Testament from the Nestle Aland 27 Greek text. In 1991 she was hired by the Bible Society to continue and intensify her efforts to complete the work. In 1994 she spent a year at Aberdeen Scotland to improve her knowledge of New Testament Greek and improve the quality of her translation work.

In 1998 after a long editing and review process the text and textual notes were completed. The notes are extensive and are nearly as large as the New Testament itself. Although Valentina is the sole translator of the work; it was edited by a foremost stylistic editor, and a team of Biblical Scholars and UBS consultants. After working through 9,000 text issues in a very thorough commenting and reconciling procedure, this team has released the translation to the Society to be published as a trial version. They are asking for feedback to further improve its accuracy and readability in a future release.

We are very privileged to have this outstanding work on Bibliologia. We also received permission to put all 8 of the RBS completed Old Testament books on our Bible reference CD. The society expects to complete the Old Testament by 2008. Even though this Good News Bible is relatively new, it has already won wide approval and accounts for nearly a third of current Russian language New Testament purchases. Only the Russian Synodal exceeds it in current popularity.

We are the first publishing group to be granted permission to distribute the new Good News Russian translation. The text had to be reformatted to be useable on our Bible Quote search and display program. The Bible Society elected to do this 6-week project for us at their expense. We praise God for His provision in this breakthrough to get the very best translation of His Word for our Bibliologia digital publishing project. This Bible reference study CD will soon be in the hands of most pastors and Bible students in the Russian-speaking world.

Greater openness to the gospel in the Arabic speaking world will result in more believers and churches. It is critical that emerging church leaders in the region have more access to Bible study tools and Christian books for training. In many countries where the need for Arabic Christian materials is already great, it is difficult to get books into the country. Bible resources on CDROMs enable easier distribution and greater protection for believers in sensitive areas.

Jordan Evangelical Theological Seminary (J.E.T.S.) and Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) have formed a joint project to produce these much-needed materials on CDROM. We will use the experience and software development from the MAF managed Russian Bibliologia Christian Library project to produce a similar product for Arabic speakers. These CDROMs will provide an effective way to distribute needed Christian training materials in a media that is easily duplicated and transported to the places they are needed.

JETS and MAF will work together to produce non-commercial CDs that will contain Bibles, Bible reference study aids, training courses and Christian books to fill a crucial need in the region. JETS will work mainly in the area of text permissions, digital preparation and formatting and MAF will work in preparing the software needed for search, display and printing of the materials. MAF will also provide technical training for text digital preparation and formatting.

Project Goals

This project will follow the example of the Russian Bibliologia project described in the History section. The goal of the project is to provide Bible study tools including various Bible translations in Arabic, French, English, Hebrew and Greek on a easily transportable and usable CDROM format. A special Bible software program called Inter-Bible will allow searching, selecting, wordprocessing and printing of this information as needed.

The project will also provide support Bible resources including dictionaries, commentaries, cross references, and lexicons to enable indepth study of the Holy Scriptures. Christian books, references, study materials and courses will be in digital format on the CDROMs for direct usage on computer when they are available. The digital file formats used for storage will also lend themselves to easy printing so that those without access to computers can still benefit from the resources and courses when they are printed at the location where they are needed. Books are in short supply and having these materials in digital format will be a vital resource on many fronts.

In the seminaries and Bible schools they can be put on the computer learning center networks and used as course resource materials. This usually would not be possible if the schools had to depend on printed resources. Students who cannot afford to own a copy of course resources can now bring them back home with them on CDROM. These resources will also be available for use by other leaders when the students return to their place of ministry.

MAF's experience and software development from leading a similar project for the development of Russian resources will allow this Arabic project to be done more efficiently. Many of the software tools and also the methods and standards have already been developed. There will still be a sizable effort required to accommodate the Arabic script and right to left pagination.