How an idea pioneered at Scriptura is attracting attention across the Bible translation world—and what your partnership is making possible.
We have some exciting news to share with our Insider Circle: Seed Company is funding the development of a resource we’ve been pioneering at Scriptura!
It’s especially encouraging because Seed Company has had to make significant funding cuts elsewhere. Yet they’ve recognized the potential of this new approach and are investing in bringing it to Bible translators around the world.
And it all started with a surprisingly simple idea: Venn diagrams.
What if a translation is accurate but misses the point?
Consider Psalm 67. It’s a beautiful song calling all the nations to rejoice because God judges the peoples justly and guides the nations of the earth.
But what does it mean for God to guide the nations?
The Hebrew word translated “guide” is the same one used in Psalm 23, where God leads his sheep along the right paths.
That connection changes how we might hear Psalm 67.
Without it, we might imagine God as a distant ruler exercising authority over the nations—even a dictator imposing his will. But the Hebrew also evokes the tender care of a shepherd, leading his flock.
Suddenly, we discover something wonderful about God’s rule over the world. His authority is not merely about power. It is also about care.
Imagine how important that distinction could be to someone translating this psalm into a language where the ordinary word for “guide” doesn’t carry any associations of shepherding!
A new way of looking at Hebrew words
This is precisely the challenge we’ve been tackling at Scriptura.
Traditional dictionaries are excellent at providing definitions and possible translations. But words also carry connotations: the associations, images, and emotional resonances that give language much of its richness.
These are particularly important in Hebrew poetry.
We’ve pioneered the use of Venn diagrams to show where the meaning of a Hebrew word overlaps with a possible translation—and, crucially, where their definitions and connotations differ.
Translation practitioners have repeatedly praised these diagrams because they make important lexical distinctions visible almost immediately.
But there’s a problem.
We’re developing a new approach, and producing these diagrams manually is both time-consuming and difficult to do consistently. Capturing connotations requires careful scholarly judgment, and maintaining that consistency across thousands of Hebrew words and multiple translation languages is a formidable challenge.
We needed a way to make the process scalable without sacrificing scholarly rigor.
Then a volunteer had an idea…
One of our volunteers began experimenting with artificial intelligence to see whether it could help generate these diagrams.
The initial results were so promising that they caught the attention of Seed Company.
And now Seed Company is funding the development of this resource!
Our pilot focuses on 50 particularly challenging Hebrew words from the Psalms, selected for a translation workshop in Guatemala.
For each word, we’ll compare its Hebrew meaning and connotations with possible translations in English, Spanish, and French. That’s approximately 450 diagrams.
Of course, AI alone isn’t enough. Experienced translation experts will review and refine the generated diagrams, helping us establish a process that combines technological efficiency with careful human scholarship.
If the pilot succeeds, we could expand this approach to hundreds and eventually thousands of Hebrew words, in many more languages.
Imagine translation teams around the world having access to these insights without needing years of specialized Hebrew training.
This is what your partnership makes possible
One of Scriptura’s distinctive contributions to the Bible translation movement is our willingness to pioneer new approaches to difficult problems.
Sometimes that means pursuing ideas before there’s an established method, a proven product, or a major organization ready to fund the work.
That’s where your ongoing partnership is so important.
You help sustain the people and scholarly expertise needed to recognize these opportunities, experiment with unconventional solutions, and develop promising ideas far enough that others can see their potential.
Seed Company’s decision to invest in this project is an encouraging example of what can happen when that pioneering work begins to attract wider support.
We don’t yet know how far these Venn diagrams will take us. That’s part of what the pilot is designed to discover.
But we’re excited about the possibilities—and grateful that you’re part of making them possible.
Thank you for helping us pursue the kinds of ideas that could change how Bible translators work with the Hebrew Scriptures.
Elizabeth Robar
A question for our Insider Circle
What excites you most about this project? Is it discovering something new in a familiar psalm, seeing scholarly resources become more accessible to translators, or the possibility of using new technology to serve Bible translation?
We’d love to hear from you! Please reach out to info@scriptura.org.
