The Whole Word for the Whole World

The Whole Word for the Whole World

Fewer than 10 percent of the world's languages have the Old Testament. But that's about to change.
by Jeremy Weber

Leviticus may seem like an odd Bible book to use in evangelism. But not in West Africa, where in April 2005 the first ten chapters were read to the Lobi—a people of subsistence farmers, animistic mask-makers, and poison-arrow warriors in Burkina Faso—in their own language.

Many in the listening crowd were struck by the similarities between the sacrifices mentioned in Leviticus and those of the Lobi religion. This infuriated the son of a Lobi priest, who forbade the reading to continue, because it is taboo to speak of Lobi religious practices in public. But another listener shouted, "Well, it means that we, too, are descendants of this High Priest. Aren't we?"

Such comments gave the Lobi translators an open door to share the gospel. They also validated the growing trend among Bible translators to bring the Old Testament to more of the world's nearly 7,000 language groups.

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