On Sunday, 17 July 2011, a very special event will take place in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thohoyandou, a service to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Venda Bible.  The programme will commence at 10:00.

The service will be a joyous occasion with music, Bible readings and the sermon will be delivered by Bishop SWS Sihlangu of the Lutheran Church.  Rev Gerrit Kritzinger, Chief Executive Officer of the Bible Society of South Africa, Mrs FF Dzhombere, the Executive Mayor of the Vhembe district, as well as the King, His Excellency Thovhele Mphaphuli, will deliver messages.  The whole community is invited to join Venda-speaking Christians to celebrate this special day and to thank God with them for the Bible in their mother tongue.

The very first complete Bible in Venda was published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1936.  This publication was the result of the translation work of the renowned linguist, Dr PE Schwellnuss, of the Berlin Mission Society.  Dr Schwellnuss was assisted by a number of mother tongue speakers, among others, Mr Isaak Mulaudzi and Mr Fineas Mutsila.

Sixteen years before the publication of the Bible in Venda, the first complete Bible books in Venda, "The Four Gospels and Acts", translated by Paul Schwellnuss, assisted by his brother Theodor, was published in 1920.  A New Testament followed in 1923 and the Psalms was published in 1929.

Today Venda speakers in South Africa and in Zimbabwe have the privilege of two Bible translations in their language.  The Bible Society of South Africa published "The Gospel according to Mark" in a new translation in 1976 and the New Testament and Psalms in this translation was made available in 1988.  The translators, Mr AR Mbuwe, Mr FC Raulinga and Prof JA van Rooy, assisted by a Review Committee, completed this translation.  The full Bible in the new translation was launched in 1998.

The Bible Society of South Africa distributes on average between 15 000 and 20 000 complete Venda Bibles annually.  Last year 17 473 Venda Bibles were made available to Venda speakers in South Africa.

The importance of the Bible in ones heart language, also in Venda, became clear in the words of an elderly evangelist when he received his very own copy of the first Venda Bible in 1936: "Now my soul need no longer eat the hard food of a strange language.  Now that I can read the Bible in my mother tongue, it tastes to me like 'mukonde'." (mukonde is a type of delicacy among Venda speakers.)

~ 13 July 2011~