Translation commentary on Mark 15:15

Exegesis:

boulomenos (only here in Mark) ‘desiring,’ ‘wishing,’ ‘wanting.’

to hikanon poiēsai is a Latinism, satisfacere, ‘satisfy.’

phragellōsas (only here in Mark) ‘having flogged,’ ‘having scourged’ (cf. Latin flagellare). The aorist participle here indicates action antecedent to that of the main verb paredōken ‘he delivered.’ The word should not be translated in such a way as to imply that Pilate personally flogged Jesus: instead of ‘having scourged Jesus’ (cf. Goodspeed). This flogging, or scourging, was extremely severe, inflicted only on slaves or provincials, never on Roman citizens, and applied to those who were condemned to death (cf. Swete).

Translation:

Satisfy the crowd may be translated as ‘make the crowd happy’ or ‘give the crowd what they wanted.’

For released see Mark 15.6.

Scourged Jesus is better rendered in many languages ‘caused Jesus to be whipped’ or ‘caused Jesus to be beaten with whips.’

Delivered him to be crucified is a highly condensed expression, requiring some more specific identification of participants and events in some languages, e.g. ‘handed Jesus over to the soldiers in order that they would nail him to a cross.’ In many languages one can not ‘hand a person over’ without specifying to whom. Moreover, the following expression of ‘crucify’ may require an identified grammatical subject.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

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