Rhetoric Race and Religion
When scholar and priest William Tyndale decided to translate the Bible into English in the 1520s, he set out on a dangerous journey that eventually led him to be burned at the stake.
At the time, the only authorised Bible in England was a 4th Century Latin version, and translations were forbidden. Tyndale’s crime was an intense desire to see his fellow countrymen read the Bible in their own language.
Five hundred years later, Bible societies around the world are pursuing the mission of having the ‘Book of Books’ translated into every single language known to man, and the number of new versions grows every year.
According to the United Bible Societies, the complete Bible has been translated into over 475 languages, and the New Testament into more than 1,240.
Bible ban
Oldi Morava, a translator for the Bible Society, was born in Albania, where the Bible was not always welcome.
All religious observance and education were banned in 1967 when the country, led by Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha, was declared the first atheist state in the world. The ban was not lifted until 1991.
Even Bible smuggling was too dangerous: “The persecution was so brutal that people were very afraid to get involved in anything like that,” says Mr Morava.
He embraced Christianity when the communist regime in his country collapsed. He was only 11 years old: “At that time, we had quite a hunger for Christianity and God,” he recalls.
“We would be reading whatever we had, although we had quite a limited amount of books about Christianity.”
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