The task of translating the Bible into sign language is daunting. “Out of the over 400 sign languages, not one language has a full translation of the Bible yet,” said Kristen Dodd, of the Deaf Bible Society.
Their goal is to work with partners to complete a full Bible translation by 2020. Deaf Bible Society’s website hosts 28 sign languages, each with various portions of Scripture available.
According to Dodd, this means that a sign language might have 32 Bible stories through DOOR International completed, or they might have some chapters in the Bible but not others. But when a piece of Scripture is completely finished, it can be uploaded to the Deaf Bible website.
There are also several translation projects that have been started that don’t have a complete portion of Scripture yet to be included on the Deaf Bible platform, Dodd said.
The looming question is: Why has it taken so long to get even one full Bible into a sign language for the Deaf?