{"id":1107,"date":"2025-07-13T00:02:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T20:02:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/?p=1107"},"modified":"2025-07-13T17:52:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T13:52:38","slug":"ai-in-bible-translation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/2025\/07\/1107","title":{"rendered":"AI in Bible Translation"},"content":{"rendered":"

** Can AI Translate the Bible? ————————————————————
\nYes\u2026 and no.
\nIt\u2019s no surprise that people are experimenting with AI in Bible translation. There\u2019s a lot of discussion in the field about how, when, and whether it should be used at all. Personally (this is Benjamin writing), I think some of the experiments are pretty fascinating\u2014like giving AI the New Testament and everything we know about a language, then asking it to generate a first draft of the Old Testament. Not everyone agrees with that approach, but in some language groups, people have even preferred the AI’s draft over the team’s original one!
\nWhile I don\u2019t use AI to translate Scripture directly, I do use it to help our team create resources faster. Finding ways to use the computer to work more efficiently is something I\u2019ve enjoyed for years. It\u2019s just recently gotten much more powerful.
\n————————————————————
\n ** Using AI to Support Bible Translators ————————————————————
\nTraining trips have been scarce this year, so I’ve been focusing on the other aspect of my work. As you may know, our team develops resources for Bible translators. We focus on identifying linguistic challenges and offering strategies to help translators address them. A lot of that work requires thoughtful human insight, but there\u2019s also a fair bit of tedium\u2014and that\u2019s where AI really shines. Not everyone wants to learn how to work with AI though, and there\u2019s no need for each team member to reinvent the wheel.
\nSo I created a spreadsheet tool: humans input the stuff only humans can do, then we send it off to AI to finish the job. (We still do two rounds of review afterward, but it goes much faster now.) This has dramatically increased our output\u2014vital now that most of what we have left is huge Old Testament books, and the groups we work with are clamoring for things to be finished. I was asked to share about what we’ve been doing at a conference this spring which people engaged with really well and made some connections to help further what we can do on this front.
\n————————————————————
\n ** Proofreading Help That Works ————————————————————
\nI also built a custom proofreading prompt for one of our resources\u2014something that runs before our human proofreaders get to it.
\nWhen asked whether we should keep using it our top proofreader said:
\n\u201cYES, great approach for the future, PLEASE! Saved lots of time and lots of aggravation. Thank you for providing it.\u201d
\nShe said that proofreading Joshua with AI’s help took her about 10% of the time it took to do Leviticus without it. That\u2019s huge!
\n ————————————————————
\n ** Training Materials ————————————————————
\nRecently, our training team asked me to work on AI analysis and suggested edits to our training resources to make sure that the language level was appropriate for those with English as a second language and incorporate a few new things. It went so well that I got a public shout-out in our \u201cbrag on your teammates\u201d session on Monday! Now that project is expanding rapidly which is exciting (and a little daunting). But I\u2019m hopeful we can keep shaping AI into the tool we need it to be.
\n ————————————————————
\n ** So, can AI do Bible translation? ————————————————————
\nIt can help\u2014sometimes significantly! And the more we learn how to guide it well, the more useful it becomes. We’ve been able to get the translation resources for Joshua, Leviticus, and 1 Samuel done recently and hopefully the pace at which we can get these into the hands of people working to bring the Word to their communities will only keep increasing.
\n\u2014Benjamin Give to our Wycliffe Ministry! (abidinginhesed.us5.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=db546fcb26a533fdfc86dbb4a&id=2bef1dad5c&e=aea6dceb05<\/a>)
\n============================================================ Did you know? If you reply to this e-mail we’ll get it! ** See this email in your browser. (mailchi.mp\/ad0ee3361325\/ai-in-bible-translation?e=aea6dceb05<\/a>) To give: ** abidinginhesed.us5.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=db546fcb26a533fdfc86dbb4a&id=f094b366f6&e=aea6dceb05<\/a> (abidinginhesed.us5.list-manage.com\/track\/click?u=db546fcb26a533fdfc86dbb4a&id=df5aa9e553&e=aea6dceb05<\/a>)
\nIf you wish to mail contributions send them to: Wycliffe Bible Translators, P.O. Box 628200, Orlando, Fl 32862-8200 Checks should be made out to Wycliffe Bible Translators, with a separate note that says \u201cpreference for the Wycliffe ministry of Benjamin & Shanna Wright, account #227489\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

** Can AI Translate the Bible? ———————————————————— Yes\u2026 and no. It\u2019s no surprise that people are experimenting with AI in Bible translation. There\u2019s a lot of discussion in the field about how, when, and whether it should be used at all. Personally (this is Benjamin writing), I think some of the experiments are pretty fascinating\u2014like… Continue reading AI in Bible Translation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8yKnB-hR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abidinginhesed.com\/ministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}