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Recently, the Africa Study Bible was launched in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital and Lagos, the economic nerve centre of the nation. During the Lagos event, DAYO EMMANUEL caught up with Matthew A. Elliott, President of Oasis International Limited and publisher of the study Bible. The American publisher who had worked with his team on the project for seven years said the African continent is rich in wisdom and its people therefore wrote the notes in Africa’s perspective which is the beauty of the project. Excerpts:
How long did this project take you?
We worked for about seven years on the project. I worked with my African colleagues to create the Africa Study Bible and we worked in over 50 countries in five languages to write 2,600 notes.
Why do you think we need this Bible in Africa since there are numerous versions already available?
We need the study Bible project here in Africa basically because the existing Bibles were written by people over 3,000 miles away from Africa. Africa has great wisdom and knowledge and in the project, our jobs as publishers is to bring those people with great knowledge together to write notes to help their people have understanding of the Bible. We have been working since 2010 from the inception of the project. It is now over seven years, bringing African writers together to write the notes.
How easy was it for you to galvanise the various cultures?
Luckily that was not my job. It was the job of the African writers and editors. We didn’t have people specifically to do everything from the cultural perspective one of the things they had to do was to make the project work across the different cultures. Even here in Nigeria alone there are many cultures just like back home in my own country, there are different cultures but there is this kind of holistic understanding. So here in Africa, we had to look for those things that create unity around God’s word, so we don’t emphasise the diversity in one way and cut people off.
How do you advise the end users to maximize the project?
This was built for the theologians, educators and pastors. So it is really God’s word to Africa to help them understand how God wants them to live as Christians.
