Remnants of a Conversation

Bible translations do not appear ready for use. Bible translations are produced by people. A dedicated Bible translation team and capable Bible translation consultants cooperate to produce them.

Consultant influence on the quality of a Bible translation is inversely proportional to the capability of a translation team.
Many Bible translation teams do not have the benefit of advanced education in essential disciplines. Availability of funding, national education systems, and other demographics contribute to this. Translation projects depend on skilled consulting to produce quality Bible translations.
Essential to producing quality Bible translation is the development of skilled Bible translation consultants. In 2021 I was responsible for launching a consultant development program. I invited two colleagues to a series of conversations. Both Dr. Bryan Harmelink of the Wycliffe Global Alliance and Dr. Phil King of SIL International are thinkers, are actively developing fresh perspectives on old issues. I wanted to test my ideas by holding them up for their scrutiny and comment.
In the process of conversation, fresh thoughts and new directions are formed. It has been more than a year since our conversations. Much of what follows reflects my thoughts on consultant development.

I hope this paper stimulates thoughts among people considering consultant development programs. In our discussions, we considered the following questions:
What is consultancy?
What are fundamental tasks and skills of a consultant?
What is an outline of a consultant development program?
What tools and materials are needed to support consultant development?