Good News Bible‘s “As for us” is added to show that we is emphatic in the Greek. This is a natural style in many other languages too. In languages that have an exclusive “we,” it is important to understand that we in this verse refers to “Paul and the other evangelists.” It may include Sosthenes (verse 1), and Silas and Timothy, Paul’s fellow-workers in Corinth (Acts 18.5), but probably not the readers of Paul’s letter. It is even possible, in the light of 2.1-2, that we here means no more than “I, Paul.” This is a common way for Paul and other writers to speak. However, the message about Christ crucified was not unique to Paul, so it is safer to translate this pronoun as the exclusive we in this verse.
Preach (Good News Bible‘s “proclaim”) translates a word often used of a herald or town crier making public announcements. It is often employed in the New Testament in speaking of apostles and other Christians who told the good news about Jesus to non-Christians. It does not usually refer to preaching to the Christian community. Translators should certainly avoid using a word that only means preaching in a church building.
Usually Paul uses Christ as a proper name, equivalent to “Jesus” (see comments on 1 Cor. 1.1). This verse is one of the places, however, where the name may keep some of its earlier meaning, “Messiah,” the one whom God chose to be king. It is not just the story of Jesus being put to death on the cross which is “offensive to the Jews” (Good News Bible), but the claim that the one whom God has chosen to liberate and rule over his people had died as a criminal. However, most translations keep Christ, even here as a proper name, because “Messiah” is as difficult for most present-day readers to understand as it would have been for non-Jews in Paul’s time. See the Good News Bible word list on “Christ.”
The tense of the verb translated crucified suggests an event whose effect continues into the present. Whether translators can easily convey this or not depends on the tense structure of verbs in the receptor language. For other ways to translate crucified, see verse 13.
The word stumbling block literally means “an object that trips someone up.” It may mean “something that makes a person fall in such a way as to be (physically or spiritually) destroyed.” Good News Bible‘s translation, “a message that is offensive,” makes the meaning clear. In more colloquial English we could say the Jews “could not swallow” or “could not stomach” this message. Other languages will have similar or equivalent figurative expressions. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch‘s “for the Jews, that is blasphemy” is a possible translation, but perhaps a little too strong. The underlying meaning in this context is probably that Jews rejected the message about Christ’s death on the cross because it was so completely different from what they expected of the Messiah.
Grammatically the stumbling block may be either Christ, the cross, or the message about Christ’s death on the cross. The difference in meaning is slight, since the three are closely connected. “Christ,” or “Christ as having been crucified,” fits in best with verse 24.
The final phrase and folly to Gentiles may be rendered as “and the Gentiles feel that it is nonsense.”
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .