Today marks 70 years since the Scriptures were first read in an indigenous language at an Anglican service, but this Christmas the Top End is buzzing with the news that the entire Bible will soon be available in Kriol for the first time.
After nearly 30 years work, the Kriol translation of the Bible is almost complete, and the Kriol Baibul will be officially launched at the Katherine Christian Convention in May 2007.
The range of indigenous languages spoken across relatively small areas has made making the Bible available in Aboriginal tongues a difficult task.
Translators finally selected Kriol, an indigenous language spoken by 30,000 people across the Top End.
"People are really keen to know all that God's saying to them," says CMS missionary Gwen Tremlett, who with her husband Lance has worked on the project since 1993.
"The Old Testament is very important to Aboriginal people because of things like the Law and Creation."
She says that the book translators most enjoyed working on was Deuteronomy.
"Some of the Psalms were difficult," she says, "but the narrative was fine. They didn't have any problems with things like the voice coming from the mountain."
A long wait for the Word
Ad hoc translations of the Bible into began in 1830, but it was not until Christmas 1936 that the Scriptures were read in an Anglican Church service in an Australian Aboriginal language.
CMS missionary Dick Harris records in his newsletter that the Gospel of Mark was read at the Oenpelli Anglican service in Gunwinggu "for the first time ever.'
But the full Bible has been a long time coming.
The Kriol project stalled after the publication of the Kriol New Testament with 14 Old Testament books in 1991, but the Rev Canon Gumbuli Wurrumara challenged indigenous Kriol speakers in 1993 to complete the project themselves.
Since then, over 100 people have been involved, including literacy workers like Lance and Gwen Tremlett as well as Kriol speakers working with notebooks in their homes.
The project has been completed in partnership with SIL Darwin, the Bible Society and Lutheran Bible Translators Australia.
