Vernacular Audio Bibles

Fellowshipping with my friend David, we realized that the Audio Bible is not such a complicated thing to produce.

Did you know that the complete Bible on audio is about ninety hours long?

What does this tell us? That we really may not need as much time to produce it as we think.

I know some are thinking about quality, whatever they mean. But I want to let you know that quality comes about when there is already something being consumed and therefore some comparison.

Ever noticed when you are starved that you will realize that food is not as good after dealing with the biting hunger? To the hungry every bitter thing is sweet is not only scriptural but is the reality.

I produce materials for people in dire need of the same and can confirm this.

Sometimes I will produce in a language I am not conversant with and so can really not do anything to improve or even know its accuracy, especially in translation.

I would therefore send a sample and ask for comments. And I have never received any to date. I would be forced to produce without their input because it wouldn’t come. I would later learn that they produced copies and started using it. Looking for problems or inaccuracies was a waste of time for them.

That is what I think about Audio Bibles. We should produce them and work on improving when it is already available and being used and ministering.

Think of the person who can’t read for whatever reason. Would they care whether it is studio quality or has the right background sounds or has the perfect voice recorder and reader?

Let me tell you what we discussed. And it became a burden that I barely slept.

We have Bible reading marathons or something like that. There are churches and Bible societies who regularly sponsor them. I say this because they are even advertised on media.

Suppose we used such for recording instead of just reading?

We can even do it differently.

Suppose we broke the Bible into five portions and have five teams reading through their portion for a week? I actually think that three days would suffice for the reading.

We would need five computers with microphones (and mixers if possible, though not a essential for our purpose). We would need about twenty readers conversant with the vernacular we want to produce. This would give one time to read a portion and get some rest as others are reading through another.

We will need a spacious venue, probably a church with several rooms for each team to be reading from. They can even be accommodated in a retreat centre where interruptions will be at a minimum.

Take the ninety hours (we can make them a hundred for ease of computation and to take care of transitions and logistics).

The five teams have twenty hours each to record.

Since they are people who are zealous to make the Bible come alive to those who cannot access it otherwise, their commitment will not be in question.

Give them a day to bond and go through the training required. The next two days will be more than adequate to record the whole Bible. Then it will be taken to the editor to make it easy to navigate though each should leave with his own raw copy.

It is as the community is enjoying this that they will have the luxury of looking for the best voice and studio to improve on what is available, and not earlier. Otherwise all nations with a Bible ought to be having an Audio Bible.

Incidentally this is a burden I have had for a long time as I have ministered to people who cannot read especially as I know what difference the Bible makes on the one who can access it, starting with me.

But I was thinking of those long routes of a reader who has to take leave for months and buy equipment and rent space for that long to produce. Incidentally we had even identified a reader but he died before we had even approached him on this.

And I have wasted those years even as the need grows. All because I was thinking of a studio and person being engaged for months on end to read!

I believe I have overgrown that desire for ‘quality’ even as people are dying without being to hear the Bible in a language they can understand.

We have scanned two vernacular Bibles (Meru and Borana) and have them on PDF.

We converted to a different format to make them easy to make a mobile app but the errors were enormous. And none of us had adequate time to devote to the correcting of those errors. Anyone who can use such is welcome. The readers of those languages can use those soft copies to read at a font size most convenient for them.

But for now I am challenging believers to take the challenge of making Audio Bibles for our vernaculars.

Who will stand with me? When will we start?

God bless you.