Global Christianity and the Rise of the Cellphone

Hugh Pickens writes "Alan Jacobs writes in the Atlantic about Every Tribe Every Nation, an organization whose mission is to produce and disseminate Bibles in readable mobile-ready texts for hundreds of languages including Norsk, Potawatomie, Bahasa Indonesia, and Hawai'i Pidgin as the old missionary impulse is being turned towards some extremely difficult technical challenges. The Bible is a large, complicated text containing three quarters of a million words and the typesetting is quite complex because of the wide range of literature types found in scripture and the need for several types of note. 'For all the issues that are still to be solved, ETEN is trying to do things that the world's biggest tech companies haven't cracked yet, such as rendering minority languages correctly on mobile devices,' says Mark Howe. 'There's a unity among Bible translators and publishers that stands in stark contrast to the fractured, fratricidal smartphone industry.' But once these technical challenges are met, it won't be only Bibles only that people can get on their mobile devices, but whole new textual worlds."

Comments

Re:New technology, old mindsets

[AltGrendel]

True but at least it gives them the drive to solve a knotty problem.

3/4 million words. tl;dr

[sakdoctor]

I wonder how short a religious text could theoretically be, while still sustainably self-replicating between hosts. (i.e. religious believers). Much of the bible is akin to junk DNA.

Re:3/4 million words. tl;dr

[Ihmhi]

That's the Old Testement. Chrisitianity is based of the New Testament. It's where Christ tought the church leaders to not be stupid when it comes to religion. For example, they brought a man with a crippled hand before Christ on a Saturday. See, it was illegal to work on a Saturday, and healing this guy would be against the law. Here is what followed:

Well, until Christianity decides to excise the Old Testament from their book, it's a perfectly valid example. You can't proclaim to believe the words in a book and then just pretend they're not there.

"Is it right to heal anyone on the Sabbath day?" they asked him - hoping to bring a charge against him.

"If any of you had a sheep which fell into a ditch on the Sabbath day, would he not take hold of it and pull it out?" replied Jesus. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? You see, it is right to do good on the Sabbath day."

Then Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand!" He did stretch it out, and it was restored as sound as the other.

--Matthew 12:9-14

The point is for you know the difference between the Old and New Testaments and which ones various groups follow. For example, your point may have made sense if this were an article about religion. But since it was an article about Christianity specifically, you just showed your ignorance. You don't have to believe the story I just quoted above, but you should understand that Christianity is not about what you seem to think it is. It's called the NEW Testament for a reason.

I'm well aware, but see my previous point. P.S., the GP said "The whole bible", hence the joke. I can find New Testament examples of shit behavior just as easily.

Re:New technology, old mindsets

[K. S. Kyosuke]

For example, the crusades required a lot of drive but are among the most evil human undertakings ever.

You must be smoking some serious stuff. The Crusades? That amateurish, badly organized and to a significant degree self-destructive (Constantinople, 1204) movement that in 200 years managed to pull of a few years total of violent fighting (if at all) and a few conquered cities (many of them just bought off rather then won by siege)?

After learning a bit about crusades, I came to the conclusion that the only dark spot in the crusading movement was the sack of Jerusalem with the concomitant bloodshed; the rest of the crusading event being little more than a farce.

Now, had you mentioned the Muslim conquest of India, that would have been a different thing. With a single expedition, Mahmoud of Ghazni enclaved half a million Indians, leaving tens of thousands dead. That was just a single incident during the centuries of the conflict at the western borders of India. As far as I know, the total death toll during the 1400 years of Muslims attacking Hindus from the west is not far from reaching the insane mark of 100,000,000 deaths. And you talk about the Crusades? Wow. Just...wow.

"Among the most evil undertakings?" No, not even close. Regarding the number of lives destroyed, the crusades pale in comparison even when compared to such seemingly mundane things as car accidents caused by drunks, lenient subprime mortgage policies and IRS tax forms.