The Bible Society of Nigeria (BSN) has broken a 54-year record by translating the new testament of the Bible to Okun language in less than five years.
According to its own history, the society had, in the past, set a period of 12 years for the completion of a Bible translation project, but has never achieved this since it was founded in 1966 — about 54 years ago.
For context, its full Kalabari and Okrika translations, which were dedicated in 2018, took over 40 years each to be completed.
In 2015, it set out to work on the Epie and Ogbia Bible translation of the Bible, and added the Okun translation project in 2016.
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By early 2021, all three projects were delivered — setting the record for the shortest time taken to translate the Bible in the history of the society.
The Okun NT in particular is the fastest translation project in the history of the BSN — it took only four years and three months to complete it.
BSN has now dedicated the new testament in the language at Ayetoro-Gbede in Kogi State with the Obaro of Kabba, Solomon Owoniyi, in attendance.
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The king (pictured above) said he never knew it would be possible to translate the Word of God into Okun language because of the dialectical variations among the Okun-speaking communities.
Timothy Banwo, the president of the BSN, said that the translation and dedication of the Okun NT was in fulfilment of the BSN mandate of making the Word of God available.
He thanked the translators for their efforts and said that the translation of Okun NT would help preserve the language and culture of the Okun people.
The Epie and Ogbia Languages are spoken in Bayelsa State, while Okun is spoken in Kogi, Kwara and Ekiti States.
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More information about the Okun new testament bible can be found on the BSN website here.
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