The growth of the Church in the last two centuries has been paralleled by an explosion in the number of languages into which all or part of the Bible has been translated. This book is perhaps the first serious effort to examine a number of issues related to that phenomenon, among them how theology can affect the kind of translation prepared, and how the type of translation itself can affect the theology of a church. It also addresses the topics of why a church generally develops faster and with a deeper faith if it has the Bible; how decisions of text, canon, exegesis, type of language and type of translation are related to the matter of authority; what forces are at play in a culture to which a translator must be sensitive; and how Bible translation affects a society and culture.
The authors of these papers are distinguished scholars in the fields of missiology, history, cultural anthropology, theology or church history. Some address theological issues of Bible translation, and others the cultural and political questions. But ultimately they conclude that if the church of tomorrow is to grow, and not be fragmented, then access to the Bible will be crucial.