ASL CBT Five-Year Project Complete

A major milestone that was accomplished in 2020 was the completion of our five-year project translating 119 passages of Scripture into American Sign Language (ASL). Thanks to our partners at Deaf Harbor, we are grateful that these vital passages are now available in ASL.

Before this project, the ASL users of the world had only 32 passages available in their heart language. These 32 passages were selected with the goal of showing Deaf people who God is, and Jesus’ role in our salvation. The additional translated passages recently released provide an even deeper understanding of the Gospel message and are curated with the goal of a relationship with God in mind. Additionally, many of the passages show the origins of the church and teach us how to live as believers. The 119 passages provide more than 2,000 translated verses, and there are more than 50 hours of released footage in all.

One key component of the ASL CBT is there are more information segments. The translation team released more than 500 additional information segments alongside the translated passages. These information segments are gold nuggets of contextual information providing a deeper look into Biblical history and culture, word definitions, and more.

Such a resource has never been seen before in the Deaf community. For years, they’ve had to depend on their often tenuous grasp of their second language (English or another written language) to learn from Bible study tools and commentaries. But now these segments are bringing a new dimension to Bible studies and personal devotion time for the Deaf people of the United States and the world.

The feedback Deaf Harbor and DOOR have received from the Deaf people who have ASL as their first language has blown us away. They are so hungry for the Gospel, and we are grateful to be part of God’s providing some of the Bible in their heart language.

We know that there are many more passages to be translated, and even though the translation team is now working on another project, they are still volunteering part of their time to continue adding more translated passages to the Chronological Bible Translation in ASL. If you’d like to check out the 119 translated CBT passages, visit deafharbor.org/tv/cbt.