Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 33:1 (Apr 2022)
Article: Book Review (Extended): "A Guide To Bible Translation: People, Languages, And Topics"
Author: Christopher J. Lovelace

Conspectus 33:1 (April 2022) p. 120

Book Review (Extended): A Guide To Bible Translation: People, Languages, And Topics

Christopher J. Lovelace

Noss, Philip A., and Charles S. Houser, eds. 2020. A Guide to Bible Translation: People, Languages, and Topics. 2nd ed. History of Bible Translation. Swindon: United Bible Societies. L + 1–1110 pp. ISBN: 978–1545658116. Amazon: $71.99 (Hardback); $61.49 (Paperback).1

1. Introduction

A Guide to Bible Translation: People, Languages, and Topics is a general reference resource produced mainly through the joint efforts of the United Bible Societies (UBS) and the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL), with the participation of many people associated with the Nida Institute.

The general editors of the Guide, Philip A. Noss and Charles S. Houser, are no strangers to Bible translation. Noss, who holds a Ph.D. in African Languages and Literature from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, served as a Bible translator and literature coordinator for 11 years in Cameroon. During his twenty-year tenure with UBS, Noss served as a Bible Translation Consultant, a regional translation coordinator (Africa), and as global translation coordinator. Houser, his co-editor, served for 36 years (1978–2014) as Editorial and Publications Manager with the American Bible Society.

This review will refer to A Guide to Bible Translation (2020) simply as the “Guide” to facilitate clarity. This will allow us to restrict references to Noss and Houser in this review to specific signed articles that they contribute within the Guide itself. References to page numbers indicate the location of material in the Guide, unless otherwise specified.

2. A Clarification Of The Title Of “A Guide To Bible Translation”

The Guide defines itself as a “reference guide” (pp. xxxi–xxxii, my emphasis) which is a helpful distinction since “Guide” in the title may suggest to some readers that it is a textbook on how to translate the Bible. Rather, A Guide to Bible Translation is a single-volume encyclopedia on selected topics related to Bible translation. That is, it is a guide about Bible translation, not a primer on how to translate the Bible.2

3. The Guide’s Intended Audience

Although the Guide is not formatted as an introductory textbook to Bible translation, the preface (p. xxxi) does list readers among its intended audience who would also be the likely consumers of an introduction to Bible translation: students and other parties interested in Bible translation, general translation studies,...