Bilhah and Zilpah: The Unsung Heroes of Genesis 37
Well as many of you know, we’ve spent the last 2 weeks doing a Bible translation workshop here on our mission base along with 2 of our Akolet language and culture helpers, Gili and Lonsi, and a group of other new missionaries in other tribes who are also in language study.
The classes we had in the morning were put into practice each afternoon as we would get together with our helpers and put our hands to translating Genesis 37. Let’s just say it was a rough go at first. After roughing out the draft in Akolet, the next task was for Gili and Lonsi to tell it back to us in more natural Akolet as we recorded them. Doesn’t sound too bad, right?
Oh my goodness, at the start it was like pulling teeth! They didn’t know what we wanted from them, and we ourselves were having trouble wrapping our minds around the concepts we learned each morning, much less making it clear to our helpers what we needed. The first 2 days, the only thing that really, truly stuck in their memories from our translation was the fact that Jacob had multiple wives, 2 of which were Mbila and Silpa (Akolet pronunciations).
Over and over we would have them tell us what the first few paragraphs should say, and while many colorful facts were thrown out over the many versions they gave us, the only consistently mentioned things were Mbila and Silpa.
Who knew that Bilhah and Zilpah were such prominent characters in the story of Joseph’s dreams and then getting sold as a slave in Egypt?? I’m sure that NEVER before have they received this much attention! (The point of all this is of course that they are NOT prominent characters, but 1: Gili especially has an uncanny knack for remembering names, and 2: we had to learn how to give less attention to them and more attention to the true main characters of the story to get the points of that passage across.)
We’re happy to say though, that we completed the project and with a few helpful comments from our translation consultants to finish it off, we have Genesis 37, the first Scripture ever in the Akolet language. Wow.
Proof positive: God uses weak vessels!
Thank you for praying for us, and please continue to do so as we have our 3rd language and culture evaluation beginning early next week.
Adam & Julie Martin
Ryan & Nicki Coleman
Akolet Tribe
Papua New Guinea
