US-based Wycliffe Associates, originally set up to support Wycliffe Bible Translators but now a separate body, has announced it is leaving the Wycliffe Global Alliance (WGA), the international network of translation bodies.
Its president Bruce Smith said it was committed to supporting "only Bible translations that use literal common language for Father and Son of God" and that "The Wycliffe Global Alliance includes Bible translation agencies that do not include Father and Son of God in some translations of the Scriptures."
"For Wycliffe Associates, literal translation of Father and Son of God is not negotiable," Smith said in his public statement.
The controversy refers to a small number of translations in which other words for "Father" and "Son" were used to refer to God and Jesus as a way of making them more accessible to readers who would assume the words implied a sexual relationship between God and Mary.
An internet petition against Wycliffe Global Alliance ensued and WGA invited the World Evangelical Alliance to appoint a panel to assess its translation criteria. The panel said that while a literal translation of the word 'son' might not be appropriate or possible, the concept of sonship had to be included. WGA now has a system of protocols in place ensuring that potentially questionable translation terms are referred to the WEA.
Wycliffe Associates also said it was committed to providing resources to its church partners to further accelerate the work of Bible translation and supports local church authority for translation quality. Last year it launched what it claimed was a new system for Bible translation, Mobilized Assistance Supporting Translation (MAST), which relied heavily on the local church to provide bilingual translators. It claimed half the New Testament could be translated in only two weeks, a huge advance on traditional methods in which translations could take years.
However, a peer-reviewed assessment team from the Maclella Foundation observed a MAST programme in Ethiopia, information that was posted on WGA's website. The report found serious failings with the programme and said that "the rate of progress and the quality achieved clearly do not substantiate the widely publicized claims made for the accelerated rate of translation that can be achieved through the MAST methodology".
WGA has been asked to comment for this story.
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