Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Translation of the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price Announced for Kazakh and Macedonian
The Church recently announced plans to translate the triple combination (e.g. the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price) into two additional languages that have never had translations of Latter-day Saint scriptures available: Kazakh and Macedonian. The Church reports very few speakers of these languages at present, and the decision to translate scriptures into these languages will serve as a tremendous resource for proselytism efforts and testimony development. There appear to be no more than 30 Macedonian speakers within North Macedonia (FYROM), whereas there appear to be no more than 150 Kazakh speakers in Kazakhstan. The number of speakers of these languages in other countries also appears very small. The Church has appeared to utilize Serbian translations to meet language needs of Macedonian speakers, whereas the Church has mainly used Russian translations to meet the needs of Kazakh speakers. The decision to translate scriptures into these languages may signal renewed interest in the Church translating materials into languages with sizable numbers of speakers but with very few Latter-day Saints. According to Ethnologue.com, there are approximately 13 million Kazakh speakers worldwide and 1.62 million speakers of Macedonian worldwide. The article I referenced at the beginning of this post also contains additional updates regarding translation of scriptures and digitization of scriptures already published in print.
10 Apr 03, 2019 Ibadan Nigeria North Stake
ReplyDelete11 Apr 03, 2019 Lehi Utah Holbrook Farms Stake
The Church just announced changes in policies with regards to LGBT individuals and especially their children.
ReplyDeleteSome will try to claim these changes show the November 2015 policies were flawed. I would argue since God speaks to us in our own lsnguage and has ways higher than our own the only thing this for sure shows is that the policies are needed to meet current issues at both times.
First off, same-sex marriage will no longer be treated as apostasy, and instead all sexual relations outside of a marriage between a man and a woman will be considered as violations of the law of chastity. One possible reason for this change is the deliberate rebellion nature of such actions may have neen more pronounced in November 2015 than today.
The other change is that baby blessings are now ipen to any child. There is clear instruction on needing to make parents aware of what it means. Other than the LGBT parents issue were there any restrictions on such blessings in the past? Basically was a geberal policy that non-member parents could have their children blessed in place?
Lastly any child can now be baptized with parental permission. There is emphasis that the nature of Xhurch doctrine needs to be emphasized in the process. One issue here is that without the policy having existed there may have develiped a practice of baptizing children without fully explaining Church doctrines related to the kaw of chastity to the parents.
I am glad to hear of two new stakes. I am hopeful enough that I expect 70 temples to be announced this weekend. Im probably crazy in that expectation, but we will see. One temple I expect anniunced is Lehi Utah. I know many dropped a Lehi Temple prediction when Saratoga Springs was announced, but with continued growth in both Lehi and Eagle Mountain as well as Saratoga Springs, I think another temple will be announced in north Utah County.
That would make Utah's 600th Stake if I'm counting right.
ReplyDeleteMatt - I just heard your interview on the MormonLand podcast. Good Job.
In the Kazakh situation it is a very qise move on the part of the Church to move beyond outreach being limited to those fluent in Russian. I hope we soon see further expansion of languages utilized in Nigeria and India.
ReplyDeleteHas the Church ever released a list of languages the endowment is available in. I know it was bot until 1946 that it was translated at all and then to Spanish. With a temple planned for India is the endowment available in Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil or other major languages of that country. With one planned for Lagos is theendowment available in Yoruba?
Oooooooh, I love this discussion on language availible within the temple. Please, if anyone knows, SHARE!!
ReplyDeleteI know it is at least in 100 languages or so, some can be gleaned from sundry reports by missionaries.Others based on the temple's location, and others from possibly other sources such as printed schedules which are sometimes found at the recommend desk.
ReplyDelete