Sign Language Bible Translators Make History, Bringing God’s Word to Deaf Communities

By: Dizindaba Staff Reporter | South Africa

For generations, many Deaf Christians have faced a barrier that hearing Christians may take for granted: accessing the Bible in the language they use every day.

While the Bible has been translated into thousands of spoken and written languages, Sign Language Bible translation is still relatively new. There are approximately 400 distinct Sign Languages used around the world, each with its own vocabulary, grammar and cultural expressions.

For Deaf communities, communication is not limited to hand movements. Facial expressions, body language and visual expression all contribute to meaning.

This makes translating the Bible into Sign Language more than simply translating written words into hand signs. It requires translators to communicate the meaning, emotion and message of Scripture in a way that is natural and understandable to Deaf people.

According to the American Bible Society, an estimated 98% of the world’s Deaf population is still waiting for access to the Bible in a Sign Language that speaks directly to them.

But that is beginning to change.

A historic translation

One of the major milestones came in September 2020 with the release of the American Sign Language Version (ASLV), described as the first complete Bible in Sign Language.

The translation was the result of 38 years of work involving more than 50 people, many of whom use American Sign Language as their first language. Translation partners from different Christian denominations and traditions worked together to translate Scripture from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts.

Deaf Missions, in partnership with American Bible Society and other organisations, contributed to the process, with the aim of producing a translation that was both theologically accurate and accessible.

The ASLV has since been made available online and has reportedly been downloaded more than one million times.

For Deaf Christians, however, the importance of the translation goes far beyond the numbers.

One user, identified as JP, described how watching the Bible being communicated through Sign Language changed his experience of Scripture.

He explained that he became so absorbed in the signed presentation that he would watch certain passages repeatedly in order to study and meditate on them.

“Sign Language is very beautiful and exciting and it draws me into God’s Word,” he said.

Deaf people translating for Deaf people

The work is not limited to the United States.

Across the world, Deaf Christians are becoming translators, teachers and advocates for greater access to Scripture within their own communities.

In Armenia, for example, a group of young translators worked together to make Bible stories accessible to Deaf children.

Over a period of three years, the team translated 365 Bible stories and parables, making portions of Scripture available to an estimated 3,500 people.

The project was challenging, but the young translators remained committed to their goal of ensuring that Deaf children could experience the Bible in a way that was natural and understandable to them.

For the translators themselves, the work also became a journey of faith.

One young translator said the team learned important lessons about belief while working through the Bible stories and overcoming the difficulties involved in translation.

Another expressed the desire to ensure that the message was not kept for a small group of people.

“I want to share it,” the translator said.

That desire to share Scripture is at the heart of many Sign Language Bible projects around the world.

“The Deaf can now hear God”

Nigeria provides another example of the impact of Sign Language Bible translation.

The country has an estimated one million Deaf people, many of whom use Nigerian Sign Language.

In 2017, a Sign Language translation centre opened in southwest Nigeria and released 110 Bible stories in Nigerian Sign Language.

For a local Deaf pastor, seeing Bible stories become accessible to members of his community was deeply significant.

“I wondered how Deaf people could ever truly understand God and his love for them,” he said.

When the stories became available in Nigerian Sign Language, his response captured the significance of the project:

“I am so happy—the Deaf can now hear God!”

Breaking down barriers

The growth of Sign Language Bible translation is an important reminder that accessibility is also about language.

For many Deaf people, written language may not communicate Scripture with the same clarity, emotion and depth as their first Sign Language. For those who have limited access to written language, the barrier can be even greater.

Sign Language translation therefore gives Deaf Christians an opportunity to engage with Scripture in a language that reflects how they communicate, learn, worship and understand the world around them.

The work is also helping to change perceptions about Deaf people within the Church.

Rather than simply being recipients of translated material, Deaf Christians are increasingly participating directly in translation projects, bringing their linguistic knowledge, cultural understanding and lived experience to the work.

The journey is far from complete. With hundreds of Sign Languages used around the world and the majority of Deaf people still without a complete Bible in their own Sign Language, enormous work remains.

But every translated story, passage and book represents another door being opened.

For the Deaf communities receiving these translations, it is not simply about having access to a book.

It is about being able to encounter the Word of God in a language they understand—and to know that they, too, are included in the story of faith.