Lemme ask you this, Quix. The group of people translating the Scriptures into Seranon--isn't that adding a "layer" of tradition. Suppose they goof here or there--get a word wrong. Translate in a way that, say, makes it sound in Seranon like Jesus is a different God than the Father.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they are very conscientious in their goal. In my field I've come across American Indian Bibles (like Eliot's in Massachusett)--some of which were literary gems. But it's extremely difficult to get it right and impossible to get it perfect. We can't even have a perfect English Bible, and thousands of people have been working on that for 500 years.
Maybe you don't see this translation issue as problematic. But it *is* in some sense extra-Biblical, no? Isn't someone making choices/decisions for someone else's Scripture? And might that not color how those people read and understand the text?
Maybe we should teach the Seranon Greek. :)
I think I have an inadequate ability to speak more meaningfully and fruitfully regarding the effectiveness of the simplicity of Scripture.
Folks can invent all kinds of problems to be cheeky about. Not my choice.
Methinks that perhaps your God is too small, to borrow a book title.
God has SUFFICIENTLY protected the ESSENTIALS OF HIS WORD to afford millions a sufficiently clear route to establishing a lasting eternal relationship with HIM regardless of so called "transmission errors," "copying errors" and pervesity of man deliberate bias translation errors.
He clearly does the same thing with these tribal groups.
It still shocks and surprises me that folks would have trouble with God being God. Kind of like He's stepped out from under their bureaucratic thumb somehow--shame on Him.
NOT!
Comparing a translating process--very straightforward and faithful to the best scholarship available . . .
comparing THAT
to the fossilized; calcified; towering; granite rigid; narrow; moss and lichen encrusted acres of traditions of the RC edifice is somewhat like considering
a gnat's . . . burp
to an ocean full of sperm whale's vomiting all the squid they'd eaten the last 10 years.
Amazing twisting of reality, to me.