From his work as a practitioner of Christian ministry to the nomadic Himba people of Namibia, Petersen (2011:11) highlights the experience that nomadic communities were, for Christian missions, difficult to reach. He asks what it would take for nomads to receive the gospel and be discipled. ‘Would [they] first need to learn to read and write?’ In the context of mission, he asserts that oral people should not be expected to change. Rather, it is the missionaries who need to change their understanding that oral people communicate and assimilate knowledge differently.

‘The word for illiteracy in Indonesia is buta hurfuf, meaning blind to letters’ (Lee 2005:20). One could argue that ‘letter blindness’ has hindered the Christian practitioner’s communication to the oral person in a literate world. Peterson (2011) concludes that it may not be the nomads who have resisted the Christian message, but the packaging of the Christian message, using written text that did not speak to a ‘letter-blind people’.

To quote Bosch (1991):

Bringing the rich oral tradition of oral societies together with the grand narrative that runs through Scripture, allows the story of redemption to naturally unfold from Creation to the second coming of Christ.

The term storying acknowledges the communication potential of recounting Scripture in story form. Lee (2005:60) cites Terry’s creation (1990) of the term storying and his reasons for coining the term:

Storying is at the heart of the performance of Scripture, ‘understood … as a sincere embodiment of communication’ (Maxey 2009:2). For the Himba people, storytelling illustrates what Avery (1996:13–14) calls ‘heart music.’ In the case of the Himba, the objective of touching their hearts with the gospel message is not as simple as speaking Otjihimba in preference to Otjiherero (a neighbouring dialect that includes written communication in their literary heritage.) The fact that the Himba language is only spoken, not written – and the fact that there is essentially no desire to see that change – is integral to their cultural identity. To use Maxey’s metaphor of language ‘fluency’ (2009:268), any missionary ministry among the Himba would need to attain high levels of fluency in the oral culture of the people. Ignoring their oral identity would be to offer them the gospel as notes of music on a page without allowing them to hear the melody that is intended to move the heart.

In a paper, presented at the 2018 Orality Conference in Richmond, Virginia, Floor (2018) asserted that oral-based Bible translation has recently emerged as a valid methodology. This contextualised approach to Bible translation for oral societies presents an alternative to written translations and oral Bible storying. Bible translation practitioners are still debating the authoritative nature of oral-based Scripture. The printed product of Bible translation is still the norm among the majority of practitioners. Most practitioners validate the oral communication preference of oral societies. The debate centres around the authority of orally crafted Scripture. Ironically, the original Hebrew and Greek texts were orally communicated, and within the written tests we have today are many oral cues. The notion of limiting scriptural authority to written text is an assumption of modern New Testament studies that ‘“early Christianity” was a literate culture’. It was ‘oral communication and oral recitation of texts, not the reading and writing of texts, prevailed in the early centuries during which the Gospel of Mark gained authority among communities of Christians’ (Horsley 2010).

At least 18 active translation projects fall into the category of Oral Bible Translation in southern Africa. The first, and probably ground-breaking example, explains Floor (2018), is the Himba oral translation on the Namibia and Angola border. What is unique about the Himba translation, is the availability of a full Bible in the Herero language – a closely related dialect. Intelligibility between the two variants is high (over 90%), and a revision of the 1920 Herero translation is in progress. Nevertheless, in conversations with Himba community leaders, it became clear that, although they accept the printed Herero Bible as authoritative, there is a felt need for a translation that takes into consideration the distinct identity of the Himba nomadic and oral culture. The Herero, in contrast, are sedentary and literate. The point is that, linguistically speaking, the Herero and Himba languages are similar. Geographically and culturally, however, Himba and Herero societies are far removed from one another.

In 2015, it was decided that translation would need to be orally drafted and, after being checked for faithfulness to the original biblical text, produced as MP3 files for the Himba pastoralists to carry with them on audio devices. Modern Himba women maintain their strong traditional identity with their ochre-wrapped locks, leather clothing and copper bracelets. At the same time, they can be seen carrying cell phones on their waistbands or listening to music from earphones attached to their MP3 players.

A contextualised oral translation method, referred to by Floor (2018) as ‘the Himba Approach’ because of its application among the Himba people, has developed to make Scripture more accessible to this nomadic oral society. The approach has quite unintentionally gained widespread acceptance and spread to other areas where oral Bible translation is a felt need.

The weekly schedule underlying the ‘Himba approach’ has come to consist of the following, for example:

All completed drafts of the oral-based Himba translations have been checked, revised, locally recorded and widely distributed on SD cards and MP3 players. Reports from the field confirm that the cattle herders carry devices around their necks or waists, enabling them to follow their herds in remote areas, listening to Scripture as they go.

In setting translation goals for the first three-year phase:

Production in the first phase exceeded the goal of 60 translated oral passages. The translation committee agreed to use the remaining time allocation to complete an additional 23 stories from Genesis, bringing the total up to 83 oral stories plus the book of Mark in a period of three years.

A second phase was launched in January 2019 with the goal of completing the book of Genesis. Given the overwhelmingly positive impact, the translation team, in discussion with the Pastors Forum and other stakeholders, have agreed to continue translating the whole Bible in oral form. For phase two, however, the goal is to complete Genesis, and to translate Romans and Hebrews.

The above description represents six years of developing an oral-based Bible translation. All the critical components of a sound Bible translation process are followed – from the initial exegesis to final approval for publication and distribution. The difference is that, while written manuscripts result in a book, oral-based translation is directed towards oral communities who will access the translation, mainly through the oral medium of MP3 devices with the option of publishing transcriptions of the oral translations:

In 2018, a celebration of the first Otjihimba Scriptures took place in Opuwo, Namibia. A modest, but meaningful milestone event was held to mark the completion of the first three-year phase of oral-based Bible translation into Otjihimba. The stadium was packed with Himba men, women and children. What made this event so significant, was that the Himba community of semi-nomadic pastoralists turned out in full force, marking this historical moment of the first public reading of Scripture in Otjihimba. In just three years since the start of this translation project, the community was celebrating the completed translation of the book of Mark, plus a total of 83 biblical passages from both the Old and New Testament. The atmosphere was electric. This was not the usual Christian gathering, attended by Herero, carrying their printed Bibles. This was clearly an event that drew the interest of Himba people, sensitive to their historically marginalised status in Namibian society.

To mark this historic occasion, several Scripture-based songs were composed in Otjihimba. A six-year-old boy stood up to recite from the oral version. His performance of the Creation story in Genesis 1 showed the memorable and performable nature of the oral Himba translation. Many testimonies were shared of how the translated Bible stories were impacting the lives of the Himba community. The Opuwo Pastors Forum has expressed the need for the whole Bible in oral format for the Himba. They agree that this is meeting a real need, bringing the gospel to the Himba in a packaging that is suited to their oral nomadic culture and lifestyle.

Another success is the suitability of the distribution medium for the oral translations. Petersen (2011) affirms that:

One of the advantages of ‘publishing’ the oral translations on MP3 devices is that the lifestyle of nomads does not lend itself to attending regular meetings. Their dependence on the elements means that they cannot commit to arriving for set gathering at set times or designated places. The nomad finds it easier to carry a device that contains the orally translated passages that can be listened to at leisure. Petersen (2011) explains that:

The nomadic lifestyle of the Himba presents an ongoing challenge for Bible translation in that they have no fixed abode. Very few Himba live in town. Their habitat is determined by the needs of their herds. Their way of life does not include schedules and deadlines. This may cause the project to be delayed, due to Himba storying crafters not being available as often as needed.

Another real challenge is the age of some of the Himba translators. Some are very young, which is an advantage in terms of technological aptitude. However, given that only older men are ‘the movers and shakers of nomadic society, youth cannot serve as a catalyst for transformation’ (Petersen 2011:22). Fortunately, the translation team is currently balanced by male seniority, but this cultural phenomenon is something to be aware of.

A particular area that merits further reflection is the selection of translated passages. In the first phase of the Himba translation, several stories were selected. Many of these fell into the category of essential component in presenting the gospel. However, I think there is room for developing (and perhaps guiding) the selection process further. From the outset, that is, from the first phase of oral-based Bible translation, there is a need to provide a story set that presents oral communities with the whole plan of redemption – from Creation to the coming of Christ through to his second coming.

There is no doubt that primary oral communities respond more readily to the gospel message when they can access it in a medium suited to their oral preference for expressing image, thought and knowledge. The recent emergence of an oral-based Bible translation, unintentionally coined as ‘the Himba approach’ has seen some early successes, which point to the potential for wider acceptance of the Christian message than ever before in the history of Christian ministry among the Himba and other oral societies in southern Africa. At the same time, the demands of the multi-disciplinary process of Bible translation are augmented by the extra dimension of challenges attributed to the nomadic lifestyle of the Himba pastoralists. Further research and reflection on the effect of the Himba approach is needed to refine the practice of oral-based Bible translation elsewhere, but it is in practising that performance is perfected; thus, the efforts of early practitioners of the ‘Himba approach’ are to be encouraged as a valuable contribution to the work of Bible translation among oral societies.