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Faith Comes By Hearing

The Advent of Oral Bible Translation

  • by FCBH
A man uses Render during an Oral Bible Translation project in Mexico.

‍The mission of Faith Comes By Hearing revolves around making God’s Word accessible to everyone. This commitment drives them to tirelessly expand the reach of Scripture’s life-saving message. They achieve this by producing Audio Bibles in various languages and making them freely available.

Research shows that seventy percent of the global population primarily learns through listening. This majority, particularly in oral cultures without written systems, grasps the essence of the Bible most effectively when they hear it spoken aloud. As a result, in these oral communities, faith is nurtured and propagated through the act of hearing.

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One Matchstick – The Senga Fire

  • by FCBH

“When we work together with our different gifts, we can say, ‘God has accomplished this.'” 
Rev. Katete Jackson Jones, BiLTA, Zambia

One year ago, Faith Comes By Hearing‘s video team set out to capture an incredible story of community transformation through God’s Word in audio. Now, the organization is ready to share that story with the world.

One Matchstick: The Senga Fire, tells the incredible true story of the Senga of Zambia receiving the Bible in their language for the first time in the tribe’s 2,000- year history.

Prior to this monumental breakthrough, no written or oral translation of Scripture existed in the Senga’s mother tongue. For years, interaction with the Bible in any meaningful way required the Senga to learn the languages of neighboring tribes. Though they desired to know and understand the Bible, their tribe was deemed too small to receive a written translation.

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Oral Bible Translation

Oral communicators account for 70% of the world’s population. Many of them do not encounter situations in their daily life when they need to read or write. Using their rich oral tradition, they sing, tell stories, pass down history and teach skills to the next generation. There are over a thousand oral cultures in the world today, whose languages have not been written down. The Apostle Paul said, “There are doubtless many different languages in the world, and none is without meaning.” (1 Corinthians 14:10)  Yes, oral languages are meaningful, and significant.

It takes years of language study and analysis before even a Bible translation team can start translating in these languages using traditional methods. Even if the Bible is finally translated, only the literate few will be able to encounter the Word of God. It will remain unreachable for the majority of people speaking these languages. Oral Bible Translation overcomes these hurdles and engages millions of people with the Word of God.

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Global Bible Apps

  • by Joshy K

God is limitless. Access to His Word, the Bible, should be too! The mission of Faith Comes By Hearing (FCBH) is to provide people everywhere with free access to God’s Word through Audio Bibles in every translated language.

The Global Bible App initiative makes the Word of God available to the worldwide community of Android smartphone users. The major focus is on people who are not connected to the internet. Global Bible Apps are designed and built by Faith Comes By Hearing using SIL’s Scripture App Builder tool for Android devices and contain the Bible text and audio in the language of preference. These standalone Bible Apps synchronize the text and audio in a “karaoke” style, enhancing the user experience.

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Some Simple Things to Think About When Recording Audio

I’m beginning to get asked a lot of questions about recording audio. I’m thinking about voice recordings of Scripture. Here are some things to think about:

  • Equipment – you only need a USB microphone or decent headset with microphone, or a condenser microphone with pop filter and sound card (that plugs into your USB port)
  • You also need to make an acoustic baffle to absorb sound. This will cut out unwanted echo called ‘reverb’. Reverb can always be added later but there is no button to remove reverb, and people like FCBH, who we work with, are fussy about these things, as they know a voice with reverb is hard to listen to and understand (music, on the other hand, needs some reverb, especially the vocals). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bTK6tZzzaE is a good video on how to make a simple acoustic baffle. You can make a small tent in your room, but this gets hot and stuffy in places like Central Asia…

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