The Invisible Infrastructure
A museum visitor who walks through this exhibition will see the manuscripts, the printed pages, the interlinear alignments, and the digital interfaces. What they will not see — what is invisible behind every one of those artifacts — is the technological infrastructure that makes them possible.
Behind every printed or digital page in this exhibition lies 2 pairs of modern tools: Paratext, the global standard for Scripture translation software; and PTXPrint, the typesetting engine that turns Paratext's carefully edited text into beautifully formatted printed and digital pages. First, two other important tools.
The Yiddish Bible text in the editing environment.
The Yiddish Bible text as it appears in Paratext — the global standard for Scripture translation management.
Why These Tools Matter for Yiddish as a Prototype and Template for the other Bibles of the 7000 Languages of the World
Working with Yiddish in a digital environment is not trivial. The language is written in the Hebrew-Aramaic square script, flowing right to left, with its own conventions for spelling, vowel marking, and typographic rendering. The Triglot adds further complexity: five columns must be aligned, two of which run right to left while three run left to right.
Paratext handles the text editing — ensuring that the Yiddish transliteration of the ancient manuscripts is faithfully preserved, checked, and version-controlled. PTXPrint then takes that carefully prepared text and produces pages where every column lines up, every script renders correctly, and every printed word honors both the tradition and the reader.
"These tools make it possible to produce the Triglot, update the Yiddish Bible, and deliver Scripture in forms that honor both the text and the reader."
Purim 2026 proved Genesis 12:3 to be true today. Genesis 12:3 is a verse that has a brocha for the follower of Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach seen in the picture above and also for one of his followers like you, even today, when this virtual museum was completed, Purim 2026, Monday evening, March 2, 2026, when the Jewish date for Purim is Yud‑Daled Adar 5786.
This isn’t just a project—it’s a platform shift in global Scripture access; but it may not happen without visionaries who give. William Tyndale's landmark translation of the Bible into English could not have happened without visionary patron Humphrey Monmouth who was imprisoned in the Tower of London due to his world-changing work with Tyndale.
Impossible to see from the bleachers June 12 to June 17, 1972 watching Bill Bright and Billy Graham at the Dallas Cotton Bowl Stadium at the Cru Explo '72 what was coming later when a Hasid would later translate the Four Spiritual Laws into Hasidic Yiddish.
Also impossible to see from publisher Dr Ralph Winter's request for a book for Muslims similar to EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO GROW A MESSIANIC SYNAGOGUE, that there would be for 1 in 4 people in the world who are Muslims both a book and a Bible and both the Muslim-friendly book and the Muslim-friendly Bible would be in the Muslim languages of the world, that is in today's chameleon-like PWA app wherein the entire app transforms into the selected language with a single switch, English and Arabic and Bengali and Bahasa (Indonesian) and Farsi and Pashto and Urdu
Dr Donald McGavran was the mentor and editor of Dr Phil Goble's writings. John Macaulay and Phil Goble are the editors of the featured Yiddish Bible in this museum, that is, the updated Bergmann-Krelenbaum Yiddish Bible, DERECH HASHEM AND THE WORDS OF HASHEM. Some may not know that Dr Donald McGavran was one of the key speakers at the Billy Graham sponsored historic 1974 Lausanne Congress. Dr Donald McGavran is widely regarded as the most influential missiologist of the 20th century. In 1980 the LCJE grew out of networks and momentum established at Lausanne. Dr. Ralph Winter, another key 1974 Lausanne speaker, published the Dr. Donald McGavran edited book, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO GROW A MESSIANIC SYNAGOGUE. Then, a few months after its 1974 publication, Dr Winter sent its author Dr Phil Goble to Wheaton, Illinois, to speak at SIL, the developer of PTXPrint, today's Yiddish Triglot's typesetting engine.
Craft in the Service of Community
There is something deeply appropriate about the fact that these tools were developed for minority and endangered language Scripture translation worldwide — and are now serving one of the most historically significant minority languages in Jewish history.
Yiddish is not dying. It is being read in Boro Park, in Jerusalem, in Antwerp, in Melbourne. The tools that serve the Yiddish Bible today are the same tools that serve Scripture translation in hundreds of other languages — a reminder that the work done here is part of a much larger, global commitment to ensuring that every people can encounter Scripture in the language of their heart.