Orality Newsletter #1 – by Janet Stahl December 2007

Jim and I began working with oral approaches to Bible translation in October 2007. We plan to present Bible
storytelling and oral approaches to team implementors in April. It's a great opportunity to share what we have
learned and what we are currently developing. The “Orality Movement” is growing both here in the USA and
among overseas mission organizations; in the church domain and throughout the secular arenas. Many terms
are being used in a variety of ways and new terms are being created. We would like to prepare for our meetings
in April by explaining these terms and by briefly introducing the theoretical issues involved in the broad topic of
oral communication. We would also like to dispel some of the rumors that have sprung up as the movement
grows. So we will be sending out short email messages regularly addressing these topics so that our
discussions in April can be as helpful and practical as possible. We are happy to dialogue via email about oral
approaches and can gladly recommend books and websites as resources.

Rumor #1: An oral presentation of the Bible is all that people need.
Some organizations may be promoting this strategy for whatever reason. We don’t think it is helpful or
appropriate to swing with the pendulum to this extreme. The ideal is for everyone to have the full compliment of
modes of communication available for learning about God and for worship and discipleship. By full compliment, I
include the written and oral presentation of the word as well as the visual and incarnational presentation of God’s
word. God encouraged his people to record His words in writing, to listen to the priests and later the rabbi and
trained men recite the words and to participate in the feasts such as the Passover that reminded them of what
God had done for them. He gave the designs of the Tabernacle with three rooms and the rituals of cleanliness to
illustrate the concept of holiness. People sang the psalms of David and others that retold the stories of creation
and the exodus as well as describing God, his promises and their relationship with Him. Jesus taught them
prayers to recite, told stories and proverbs and gave them sermons with metaphorical pictures and the people
were encouraged to live as Jesus. Jesus read from the Scriptures and quoted both the written and the oral
Scriptures knowing that His audience knew these stories. The Bible is full of examples of the various modes of
communication that God encourages his people to use.
Traditionally, translation organizations focused mainly on the presentation of the written word anticipating that the
other modes of communication would be carried out by other missions or the church. For the traditional western
Christians, public reading or performing of the word has been reserved for a small part of the Sunday morning
service or for mass media presentations that occurred at special occasions. Storytelling has been lost from the
close community life and taken over by Hollywood. Storytelling is not even a part of Sunday school these days.
However, educational institutions, businesses, advertisers, public health groups and politicians are reclaiming
this tradition and bringing it back into vogue. And some churches are beginning to reclaim the powerful
storytelling tradition.
As the lines between organizations are blurred with increasing partnerships and as we look to involve more
people outside of the western tradition in the translation task, we need to consider what part the various modes
of communication should have in training people, reaching people and helping the worldwide church grow.
Hopefully this message stimulates lots of questions and ideas that we will continue to explore.