Panama News

Here is a page from the 2006 Embera calendar:

The text says, “The month that trees produce nuts and seeds. The month that animal fat comes.” This is a good month for hunting, as the animals are eating a lot and getting fat.

Here is the corresponding month:

In the upper left box you can see an explanation of the 4 phases of the moon. Each day has a Scripture portion to read. August 7 and 21 are holidays in Colombia and August 15 in Panama. Lower right box has Joshua 1:9. Each month has a reading for each day as well as a key verse. If a person reads each portion each day, by the end of 2006 s/he will have read through all of the Old Testament portions translated into the Embera language.

Chaz is mailing some down to Colombia to be distributed there among Emberas. Also many are going out around Panama. Please pray that people will actually read the Scriptures as encouraged to by these pages.

In the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the author refers to someone he calls the Logos, or “Word” in most English Bible translations. In Greek thought, Logos referred to the reason or force which structured the universe. Pantheists said the Logos held the universe together and endowed men with wisdom. More specifically, Stoics considered that Logos was the only god. Theists took the Logos as the means of God’s revelation to the world. The general definition of Logos, though, is inner thought, reason or science, as well as external expression, speech or message. Logos, although translated as “word” in English, does not refer to an individual word.

In Jewish thought, the “Word” was preexistent divine wisdom created before the world. Wisdom is personified in Proverbs 8:22-31, where it also says Wisdom was present at creation. The Word is personified as he ‘comes to’ prophets and when God ’sends forth’ his Word. Philo, a Jewish philosopher, combined the Jewish “Wisdom” and “Word” with Greek “Logos.” He called the ideal world the “Logos of God.” He also called the ideal or primal man “Logos.”

Since Jews considered Wisdom/Word divine yet distinct from God, Logos was the closest available Greek term John had to refer to Jesus.

Unfortunately, in English Bibles “Logos” is translated as “Word”. This has led to misunderstanding. Many believe “In the beginning was the Word” in John 1:1 refers to God speaking the world into existence, as when he said, “Let there be light.” Bienvenido said they teach this in his church. Some even believe it means that the Bible has always existed. And in Embera if we used “word”, the first sentence in John could mean “In the beginning there was a language” or even “in the beginning there was a problem!” Obviously, we wanted to avoid these kinds of misunderstandings.

We decided to translate Logos as “What God wanted to make known.” As John slowly makes it clear in the first chapter of his Gospel that the Logos is Jesus, we tried slowly to personify “what God wanted to make known.” However, personification is hard in Embera. In verse 7, we had to put in the word “embera” to make it plain that what God wanted to reveal was a person, not some information. So it says:

“[John] came to speak about God’s light, so by his saying it, people would believe the person God was making known.”

In drafting John 15:1 and following, I was surprised to find out that even though the Emberas plant different kinds of banana and fruit trees, they do not prune some branches to make others grow better. They don’t grow grapes, either, and to them a vine is something that hangs down from a tree and is good for tying things. So to start out John 15 we are without appropriate expressions for vine, vinedresser, and pruning. In addition, our word for grape is invented: uva (from Spanish) fruit.

We managed to get through those verses and communicate the ideas of dependency on Jesus and unity with him. Then we came to verses 10-11:
“If you believe my commandments and do them, you will be truly knowing I love you. In the same way, by my obeying my Father’s commandments, I truly am knowing that He loves me. I say all this so my happiness will be with you so you will each be very happy.”

Bienvenido asked about this. So I gave some examples of difficult things in my life which I know God wanted me to do. When I actually trusted him and did them, I had peace and enjoyed more blessing. But when we don’t do what God wants us to do, we start wondering whether he actually loves us at all. Bienvenido responded to this, “That is a huge thought.” In other words, that’s really important.

For a long time I was dissatisfied with the Northern Embera expression used for “trust”, the kind of abiding trust by which people hang onto God’s promises. In other drafts it had been translated the same way as “believe” and “faith,” but in the passage Bienvenido and I were working on, this would not be adequate.

In John 14:1 in most versions in English, Jesus says to his disciples, “Let not your hearts be troubled. (You) believe in God; believe also in me.” He is saying this just hours before he will be betrayed and arrested.

The exegetical helps, materials available to translators so we can determine what a given passage means, indicate that Jesus is exhorting the disciples to trust in him as much as they trust in God, even in this time of wondering. That’s all well and good, but what if your expression for “trust” is inadequate?

Looking further in the exegetical helps, I saw one suggestion for translation: know/believe that God is doing the right thing. I come up with an impromptu rendering of this in N. Embera and talked about it with Bienvenido and he said, “OK, then, can we say ‘know that God is doing correctly?’ ” At first I guessed that he said “correctly” because I happened to say “correcto” in Spanish. So I asked, “How does God do correctly?” And he said, “It’s like the Holy Spirit– if we need a little help, he gives it to us, and if we need a lot of help he gives that, too.” So if we used that term in this context it would mean that God is doing the right thing in that particular situation. This seemed good to both of us. So our rendering is:

“Don’t be not knowing what to think because of sadness. Like you believe that God does correctly, believe that I am doing correctly.”

Just a reminder to you all that End of the Spear will be opening in about 1200 theaters around the US on January 20. To find a theater near you, go to the website on our list of links at the right, then look for “Group Sales”, then click on “Click for Theater Listings”.

From the website: “Within the Theater Listings here on the site, you’ll find each theater is marked either “Planned” or “Confirmed.” I’d like to encourage everyone who would like to see the film in a “planned” theater to contact the theater manager there and express your group’s interest. This can help us turn the “planned” ones into “confirmed” ones quicker!”

Check for your city or one nearby to see where it is planned and then do some encouraging. It’s especially important to go the opening weekend or week to give the movie a good running start.