ICAS-Accredited Degree Program
Master of Arts in Bible Translation Mission
M.A. credential
Explore how Bible translation brings Scripture to people in their own language and opens new possibilities for mission.
Master of Arts in Bible Translation Mission: Your Grant Price
Applications are free. Eligible applicants receive their admission and Grant decision before any one-time program fee is requested.
Published tuition
$14,900.00
$599.00 Registry & Assessment Fee
$99
Master's Degree
2026 Life in Christ Grant is active
Ministry Experience, Evaluated Against Academic Standards.
Documented prior learning may be considered when it aligns with program outcomes; every credit decision follows academic review.
Program Overview
About this program
The M.A. in Bible Translation Mission works at consultant level, where drafts are checked and disputed renderings are settled. Translation is where exegesis stops being theoretical: you cannot leave an ambiguity ambiguous, and every decision becomes a wording somebody will read for fifty years. This ICAS-accredited Kingdom of Life University program covers the linguistics, the exegesis, the checking process, and the long relationship with the community whose Bible it will be.
Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
Recognition of demonstrated learning in theology and ministry
Experienced ministry practitioners demonstrate competencies developed through years of service, theological study, and continuing learning. The assessment connects that learning with the published outcomes of the Master of Arts in Bible Translation Mission through biblical understanding, theological reflection, research, and ministry judgment.
70
Audited questions in this pathway bank
30
Questions drawn for each sitting
60 minutes
Time available for the knowledge component
24 hours
Interval before reassessment
Theological knowledge and degree outcomes
- Published bank title
- Bible Translation Mission - Master Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
- Credential
- Master of Arts (M.A.) in Bible Translation Mission
- Question construction
- 14 pathway subject-bank sources contribute 5 questions each, producing the complete 70-question bank.
How completion is reported
- The knowledge component contributes 40% and assessed ministry experience contributes 60% to one weighted result.
- The reported result is no lower than 80%, matching the 80% degree pass mark.
- Reassessment draws a fresh question set and is included in program access, with no additional fee or limit on sittings.
- The integrated assessment covers the published degree plan; separate course assessments, a capstone paper, and a dissertation defense are not required.
Program Objectives
What you will achieve
Integrate advanced theological study, spiritual maturity, and ministry wisdom for Christian leadership
Apply a defensible translation method to passages where meaning and form pull apart
Describe the linguistic features of a target language well enough to translate into it
Carry an exegetical decision through to a specific wording and justify it
Work with a receiving community so that the translation belongs to it
Learning Outcomes
Skills and competencies you will develop
Synthesize advanced biblical and theological evidence for clear teaching, leadership, and ministry judgment
Draft and defend a translation of a difficult passage against stated criteria
Conduct a back-translation check and act on what it reveals
Plan Scripture engagement for a community whose primary mode is oral
Evaluate an existing translation for accuracy, clarity, naturalness, and acceptability
Career Opportunities
Where this degree can take you
Bible translation worker
Translation consultant
Scripture engagement specialist
Missions agency staff
Major Subject Areas
The fourteen subjects you study, and the ones the ministry assessment draws on
Foundational and Major-Core Subjects
Four foundations every pathway shares, then four that belong to this field.
Advanced Biblical Interpretation
Interpretation under the particular pressure of translation, where a reading that stays comfortably undecided in a commentary has to become a sentence.
Advanced Old Testament Theology
The Old Testament's languages, idioms and cultural distance, and the recurring problems — kinship terms, sacrifice, covenant, poetry — that every translation team meets.
Advanced New Testament Theology
The Greek New Testament and the passages where translations visibly diverge, examined for what is actually at stake in each divergence.
Advanced Christian Doctrine
Doctrine as it bears on wording, since a translation commits to theological readings whether or not the team notices it doing so.
Advanced History of Bible Translation
From the Septuagint and Vulgate to Tyndale, the King James Version, and the modern missionary translation movement, with the controversies each generation of translators provoked.
Advanced Translation Theory and Method
Formal and functional equivalence and the approaches that have succeeded them, examined through passages where the two methods produce materially different renderings.
Advanced Linguistics for Translators
The linguistic groundwork translators depend on: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse, and the field methods used to describe a previously unwritten language.
Advanced Exegesis for Translation
Exegesis carried out with translation in view, where every interpretive decision must issue in a wording, and ambiguity in the source cannot always be preserved.
Specialization Subjects
Six more that take the field into the places it actually gets used.
Advanced Orality and Scripture Engagement
Oral cultures and Scripture: storying, performance, memory, and audio formats, and what Scripture engagement means where literacy is not the primary route to the text.
Advanced Translation Checking and Quality
The checking process: community testing, back-translation, consultant review, and the criteria by which a draft is judged accurate, clear, natural, and acceptable.
Advanced Community Partnership in Translation
Translation as a shared undertaking with the receiving church, covering team structures, ownership, decision-making, and the long relationships the work requires.
Advanced Scripture Use and Discipleship
What follows publication: distribution, literacy work, discipleship materials, and the question of whether a translated Scripture is actually being used.
Advanced Spiritual Formation and Christian Vocation
Spiritual sustainability in work measured in decades, often far from home, and the vocational question of whose Bible this finally is.
Advanced Integrative Theology and Ministry
A translation problem taken whole: exegesis, draft, community testing, back-translation, revision, and a written defence of the final rendering.
Admission Requirements
What you need to apply
- Bachelor's degree from an accredited or recognized institution
- Official transcripts showing preparation appropriate to graduate theological study
- Statement of theological, academic, and ministry goals
- Current resume or curriculum vitae
- Two ministry, professional, or academic recommendations
Degree Completion Requirements
Requirements for the Master of Arts
Graduation Requirements
- Complete at least 36 graduate semester credits in the approved degree plan
- Pass the Competency-Based Ministry Assessment for the degree
- Satisfy every graduate-core, specialization, elective, and comprehensive requirement group
- Integrate theological knowledge with assessed ministry experience under the published result-weighting policy
- Recognize demonstrated learning against every published degree-plan requirement
Culminating Experience
Demonstrate graduate theological understanding and ministry judgment through Competency-Based Ministry Assessment, recognizing advanced learning developed through prior study and service.
Credit Distribution
| Requirement Area | Credits | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Graduate Core | 21 | 7 courses. Required advanced theory, methods, and professional competencies of the discipline. |
| Graduate Specialization | 9 | 3 courses. Focused graduate study in an approved concentration or practice area. |
| Graduate Elective | 3 | 1 course. Any master-level major course from any school that is not already part of this degree plan. |
| Competency-Based Ministry Assessment | 3 | 1 course. Integrated graduate theological knowledge and assessed ministry experience, recognizing demonstrated learning across the published degree plan. |
| Total Degree Credits | 36 | All requirements must be completed within the approved degree plan. |
Program Details
Program Length
Self-Paced
Self-Paced Learning
Total Credits
36 credit hours
Up to 18 Transfer Credits
Published Degree Plan
12 courses
Across 4 required curriculum groups
Format
Flexible Study
Assessment Format
Competency-Based Ministry Assessment
Selected Degree
Master
School
School of Theology and Ministry
Institutional Status
ICAS Accredited
Ready to Begin Your Accredited Bible Translation Mission Degree?
Applying costs nothing, and the work you have already done may count. Have a look at what this pathway asks for before you decide.