By Natalie Hanks, Lead Editor

In Kenya there is a tribe that produces the world’s best runners. This tribe, the Kalenjin, are outstanding long-distance athletes. Scientists have called them ‘the running tribe’ and have studied why this makes them unique—it could be higher than average lung capacity and haemoglobin, unusually slim ankles and calves, muscle fibre types, or lifestyle, training, and diet. Over the years they have won many gold medals and set many records. However, much more importantly, many of these people are Christians (nominal or otherwise), and those who are truly the Lord’s are running ‘with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith’ (Hebrews 12.1–2).

The current president of Kenya, William Ruto, is an evangelical Christian and a member of the Africa Inland Church. When he was deputy president, he was on a mission to get Bibles to as many people as possible, asking leaders and members of Parliament to ensure that the people they represented got access to Bibles published in their local languages so that they can read and understand God’s Word. At an event he said, ‘As I stand here today I am a beneficiary of the Bible that was written in Kalenjin. It is the Bible in Kalenjin that made my father to read the Word of God, to stop what he was doing, married my mother and took us to school’. He then quoted, ‘If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. But if you speak to a man or woman in his or her own language, it goes to his or her heart’.¹ This is one of the aims of TBS: to translate Bibles into people’s own native, heart language.

TBS has been working on the Kalenjin New Testament for over ten years now, and, at the time of writing, it is being printed. We hope and trust that it will be blessed to many souls in Kenya. But who are the Kalenjin people, and why do they need a new version of the New Testament?

The Kalenjin people

The Kalenjin people mainly live in Kenya, a country in the east of Africa. There are many different people groups who live in Kenya, which can broadly be categorised into the following categories: Bantus, Nilotes, Cushites, Arabs, and Asians, along with Europeans (who make up one per cent of the population). Nilotes (or Nilotic people) are thought to have originated in the Nile Valley, and the Kalenjin people fall into this category, along with other tribes such as the Maasai and the Samburu. The Kalenjin (numbering over six million) are one of the five largest ethnic groups in Kenya, and there are also a small number of them in Uganda and Tanzania.

The Kalenjin tribe itself is made up from ten smaller subtribes which have cultural and linguistic differences. These are the Nandi, Kipsigis, Tugen, Keiyo, Marakwet, Pokot, Sabaot, Sengwer, Teriik, and Ogiek.

The Kalenjin live predominantly in the highlands of the Rift Valley area of Kenya. The Rift Valley is an intra-continental ridge system that runs through Kenya from north to south. The valley contains a series of lakes, the Cherangani Hills, and a chain of volcanoes, some of which are still active. The valley is bordered by escarpments to the east and west. On the western side these rise to the highlands, where many of the Kalenjin live. The elevation of Eldoret, an important city in Kenya where several of the TBS Kalenjin Bible Committee live, varies from about 2,100 metres at the airport to more than 2,700 metres in nearby areas. This height above sea level is comparable to some of the high valleys and mountains of Alpine Switzerland and may also give some advantage to the local athletes!

Pre-colonial Kalenjin

Before the rise of colonialism in the nineteenth century the majority of the Kalenjin were semi-nomadic farmers. They raised cattle such as sheep and goats and grew various crops including millet, maize, tea, and sorghum. Traditionally they lived in round houses built from sticks with mud and dung plaster, and thatched with grass. These houses are still common today, although the majority of people live in square or rectangular homes with timber walls with solid roofs.

The people in the tribe were divided into groups: the men were divided into boys, warriors, and elders, while the women were divided into girls and married women. The men were split into ‘age sets’ and when the men of a particular set became of age their job was to protect the tribal lands of their village; their weapons were typically spears, shields, swords, and clubs. Each tribal village usually had a headman.

Traditional clothing was made of animal skins. Earrings were common in both men and women; the practice was to stretch the earlobes as much as possible down to the shoulders. The women would make elaborate beadwork, including decorating the outsides of gourds used for storing mursik (a traditional fermented cow or goat milk, prepared in a special gourd lined with soot and charcoal from plants such as the African senna).

The colonial era

During the nineteenth century early European explorers started advancing into eastern Africa and Kenya, and in 1895 Kenya became a British Protectorate. White settlers took over much of the tribal land, and started growing crops such as tea in the highlands.

The Kalenjin had a fearsome reputation as warriors, and the area was regarded as a ‘closed country’ as the tribes wanted to protect their homeland. Between 1890 and 1906 the ‘Nandi Resistance’ was a conflict that took place between the Kalenjin (mainly the Nandi group) and the British colonial administration. The conflict itself was triggered by two British traders who had set up trading posts from the coast to Lake Victoria, wanting to have a trade monopoly with the Nandi, but tensions had already been building up as the Nandi people were resistant to a new railway line being built. They organised two convoys to travel into the area, but after antagonising the Nandi both traders were killed along with the majority of the people with them. The East Africa Protectorate and Foreign Office reacted by leading expeditions against the Nandi, but were not able to end Nandi resistance until 1905 when they killed the Nandi leader, Koitalel Arap Samoei.

Until the middle of the twentieth century the Kalenjin did not have a common name and were usually referred to as the ‘Nandi-speaking tribes’ by colonial officials. During the Second World War men from these ‘Nandi-speaking tribes’ who had been drafted to fight started to use the name Kale or Kole—meaning the scarification of a warrior who had killed an enemy in battle—to refer to themselves. A local wartime radio broadcaster called John Chemallan would also introduce his wartime broadcasts show with the phrase Kalenjok meaning ‘I tell you’. The story goes that this influenced a group of fourteen young Nandi-speaking men who were trying to find a name for their peer group, and they settled on Kalenjin. This term grew in popularity among the wider Kalenjin group, and eventually came to denote all Nandi-speaking tribes and those associated with them. In 1948 the Kalenjin Union in Eldoret was founded.

Independent Kenya

In 1963 Kenya gained independence, becoming a republic in 1964. It was ruled as a one-party state by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), led by Jomo Kenyatta from 1964 to 1978. The next leader was from the Kalenjin tribe, Daniel Toroitich Arap Moi, who served the longest, into the 1990s. He was an evangelical Christian from the Africa Inland Church (AIC), and granted freedom of worship. During this time many evangelical Christian churches were established.

After some years of unrest, Kenya became a multiparty country in 1991, and passed a new constitution in 2010. In 2022 William Ruto, from the Kalenjin tribe, became the fifth president of the country.

Many of the Kalenjin people remain pastoral farmers in their homelands, with a way of life that has not changed substantially over the years. However, a significant number (like William Ruto) have moved to Kenya’s cities where large numbers are employed in the government, army, police, business, banking, and finance.

Kalenjin language

The tribes which make up the Kalenjin group speak their own languages or dialects, which differ from each other within the Kalenjin group, and also differ from other languages spoken in Kenya. These languages within the Kalenjin group are not mutually intelligible but some are linguistically closely related. The two main dialects which became known as the Kalenjin language are Nandi and Kipsigis, which use the same vocabulary and have become standardised over time. Some of the other dialects (such as Pokot) are very different, and cannot be understood across the other tribes which make up the wider Kalenjin tribe. This is why TBS has a separate Pokot project.

The Kalenjin language is spelt phonetically. It is mainly a spoken language, rather than a written language. While the older generation learnt the language in school, for two generations it was not on the syllabus meaning that they don’t know the language in written form so well. However, it has recently been reintroduced to the syllabus so young people today can read it better. The language has few literary works, but these include a Bible, hymnbook, and grammar book. The 1969 Bible (mentioned later in this article) helped to set the standard for language, and the grammar book aligns with it. There is no body or organisation overseeing spelling and grammar, meaning that spelling is a challenge for the TBS translators.

Kalenjin has ten vowels and three tones, with a three-way distinction of vowel length. It also uses ‘clicks’ for some consonants, which add emphasis or have specific meanings. An example is the word for ‘honey’ which is pronounced with a click.

The Kalenjin and Christianity

Traditionally, the Kalenjin had a tribal religion. They believed in a supreme god called Asis or Cheptalel, who was represented by the sun. Beneath Asis was Elat (Ilat/Ilet), who controlled the thunder and lightning. Kalenjin did not have a definite name for the supreme deity but used attributes such as Chebopkooiyo (god of protection), Chepomirchiio (god of wars, who oversees the army), Chepkeelyen Sogol (deity of the nine planets), and Chemalus (one with unconquerable wisdom), amongst other names and characteristics.

The Kalenjin believed that spirits of the dead intervened in the affairs of humans, and had to be placated by sacrifices of meat and beer. They also believed that diviners had magical powers and could help control rain and floods. The religion had its own moral rules and regulations, some of which could be considered similar to the Levitical Laws.

During the eighteenth century Protestant missionaries arrived in East Africa. One of the first was Johann Krapf (mentioned in more detail in Quarterly Record 647, April–June 2024). Krapf had a vision of a chain of mission stations across Africa from the east to the west—which later became one of the goals of the Africa Inland Mission (AIM) set up in 1895 by Peter Cameron Scott. Missionaries of the Africa World Gospel Mission (WGM) pioneered the work among the Kipsigis while missionaries of the Africa Inland Mission started the work among the Nandi and Tugen.

Christianity spread quite rapidly through the Kalenjin-speaking areas during this period, and traditional religion saw a decline. Today, many are Christian, belonging to groups such as the Africa Inland Mission, while a smaller number are Roman Catholic, and a few are Muslim. By reference, 85.5% of Kenya is Christian (33.4% Protestant with many belonging to groups such as the Africa Inland Church; 20.6% Catholic; 20.4% Evangelical; 7% African instituted churches), and 11% Muslim, with a remainder as other religions.²

The Kalenjin Bible

In 1939 the first Kalenjin Bible was translated into the Nandi language by the Africa Inland Mission (AIM), and in 1953 the Kipsigis New Testament. Between 1958 and 1966, a committee worked to produce a Kalenjin Bible which most of the subtribes could understand. This was translated from the Revised Standard Version (which is based on the Greek Critical Text) and was published in 1969 by the Bible Society of Kenya (under the United Bible Societies umbrella). This version is called the Kalenjin Union Version of the Bible. Once it was completed, the individual Nandi Bible and Kipsigis New Testament were seldom used, although there was a revision of the 1939 Nandi Bible, published in 2019, which, while purportedly based on the Authorised Version, still has missing words and verses in the New Testament.

In 2016 the Bible Society of Kenya published the Revised Kalenjin Bible (Bukuit Ne Tiliil), the aim of which was to update some of the terminology and wording used, and to add the Roman Catholic deuterocanonical books (they produced two editions, one without the deuterocanonical books for Protestants, and one with them for Roman Catholics!). The translation deviated from the conventional spellings and used the scientific spellings. At the launch of the Bible in Eldoret, three athletes from the town ran with their Bibles to symbolise that the recipients of the Bible were ready to run with it in preaching the Gospel. Sadly, this edition is also based on the Critical Greek Text.

For many years the 1969 Kalenjin Bible was the version used most in church services, although it is now only published in very small numbers by the Bible Society of Kenya who seek to replace it with the newer 2016 edition. Meanwhile, younger people tend to use English or Swahili Bibles. Overall, the Kalenjin speaking people still don’t have a Bible accurately translated from the original Biblical languages, so that they can read the Word of God in their own heart language.

The TBS project

Since 2014 TBS has been working with a team in Kenya to prepare a faithful new translation of the Kalenjin Scriptures directly from the Biblical languages, with secondary reference to the Authorised (King James) Version and extant Kalenjin Bibles.

We rejoice that the Kalenjin New Testament has recently been sent to print, and we hope to receive the printed copies shortly, Lord willing. Please pray that this New Testament might be a blessing to many people in Kenya. Work is also ongoing on the Old Testament translation, and we hope that the whole Bible will be ready for typesetting by the end of 2025.

The TBS edition of the Kalenjin Bible is in ‘harmonised Kalenjin’ which covers six of the dialects of the Kalenjin peoples: Kipsigis, Nandi, Keiyo, Marakwet, Tugen, and Terik. The lack of standardisation of literary Kalenjin has proved a challenge, especially as the newer 2016 version of the Kalenjin Bible was partially rejected due to its departure from the established standard of spelling. This means that the TBS translation team made the decision to retain the older form of spelling to make the edition more widely acceptable. They are also using the theological words and terms from the 1969 Bible which set the standard. However, the team have changed a few words such as those used for atonement and that for righteousness, which is now a distinct word from justification and truth. There is also no Kalenjin word for snow, so it has been borrowed from Swahili.

The Sabaot and Pokot dialects are not covered by this edition, especially the Pokot which is a very different language. However, TBS has been working on a separate Pokot New Testament project since 2012. This new Pokot translation is primarily from the Greek Received Text New Testament with secondary reference to the Authorised (King James) Version. Our lead translator also refers to the first edition TBS Pokot New Testament of 1967, as well as the Pokot New Testament published by the Bible Society of Kenya and other extant African language translations. The original 1967 TBS Pokot New Testament was a pioneering edition prepared by Tom Collins and Lawrence and Annette Totty, missionaries to the Pokot people. Despite their best endeavours some of their local helpers back in the 1960s suggested poor translation choices which need correcting. In addition, the language has continued to progress over time, thus making a new edition even more important. So far, the team are working on the New Testament, and the Gospel according to John has been published.

‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God’ (Hebrews 12.1–2).