Home Christian News First Nations Version Translates the New Testament for Native American Readers

First Nations Version Translates the New Testament for Native American Readers

He and his wife, Darlene, who have a music ministry called RainSong, also recorded readings of those passages over music in an album called “The Great Story from the Sacred Book.” It won a Native American Music Award in 2008 for best spoken-word album.

Wildman was encouraged by the reactions he received as he shared his rewordings across the country at tribal centers, Native American-led churches and powwows.

“They just loved listening to it because it didn’t have the church language. It didn’t have the colonial language. It had more of a Native feel to it — as much as possible that you can put in English,” he said.

Many Native people asked what Bible he was reading from.

Young people have told him it sounds like one of their elders telling them a story. Elders have said it resonates with how they heard traditional stories from their parents and grandparents.

As others encouraged him to turn his rewordings into a full translation of the Bible, Wildman published a children’s book retelling the Christmas story, “Birth of the Chosen One,” and a harmonization of the four Gospels called “When the Great Spirit Walked among Us.”

Then, on April Fool’s Day 2015, he heard from the CEO of OneBook Canada, who suggested the Bible translation organization fund his work. The offer wasn’t a prank, he said, it was “confirmation from Creator that this was something he wanted.”

“Everybody hears English a little differently,” Wildman said.

“We have all of these translations for that purpose to reach another generation, to reach a particular people group. But we had never had one for our Native people that has actually been translated into English.”

Wildman began by forming a translation council to guide the process, gathering men and women, young and old, from different Native cultures and church backgrounds. They started with a list of nearly 200 keywords Wycliffe Bible Translators said must be translated properly to get a good translation of Scripture.

With that foundation, Wildman got to work, sending drafts to the council for feedback. He looked up the original Greek text of the New Testament. He checked to see how other English translations rendered tricky passages. He consulted Dave Ohlson, a former Wycliffe translator who helped found OneBook Canada, part of the Wycliffe Global Alliance.

The Indigenous translation uses names for God common in many Native cultures, including “Great Spirit” or “Creator.” Names of biblical figures echo their original meanings in Greek and Hebrew: Jesus becomes “Creator Sets Free” and Abraham, “Father of Many Nations.”

“We believe it’s very important that the Gospel be kind of decolonized and told in a Native way, but being accurate to the meaning of the original language and understanding that it’s a different culture,” Wildman said.

Over the years, he and his council have published editions of the Gospel of Luke and Ephesians and a book called “Walking the Good Road” that included the four Gospels alongside Acts and Ephesians.