SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 9:10

9:10a

In some languages, it may be natural to indicate result here. For example, the Contemporary English Version says:

So they kept it to themselves.

So they: The pronoun they refers to Peter, James, and John.

kept this matter to themselves: The phrase kept this matter to themselves is an idiom. This idiom indicates that the disciples did not tell anyone about what had happened. Jesus had told them not to tell anyone, and they obeyed him.

Here are some other ways to translate this phrase:

kept the information to themselves
-or-
observed the warning faithfully (New Jerusalem Bible)
-or-
did not tell anyone about what happened on the mountain

9:10b

There is an implied contrast between 9:10a and 9:10b. The contrast is between what the disciples did not talk about (what they had seen on the mountain), and what they did talk about. Some English versions make this contrast explicit. For example, the New Century Version has:

but they discussed

Make this contrast clear in a way that is natural in your language.

discussing: The word discussing means “talking about something to understand it” or “talking about something to try to agree about it.” The disciples were trying to understand what Jesus meant.

The Greek tense of the verb probably indicates that they discussed this for some time.

Here are some other ways to translate this word:

began to talk about
-or-
started to debate about

what it meant to rise from the dead: God had caused several people in the Old Testament to come alive again after they had died. The disciples knew those stories. But they probably believed that Jesus as the Christ would not die. So they were trying to understand how to rise from the dead applied to Jesus.

Here are some other ways to translate this:

what he meant about rising from the dead (New Century Version)
-or-
what he meant by “come back to life” (God’s Word)
-or-
how “rising from the dead” applied/referred to Jesus

to rise from the dead: Use the same phrase for to rise from the dead that you used in 9:9c. If you need to change the verb form, make sure it is clear that the disciples are referring to what Jesus had just said.

General Comment on 9:10b

The Berean Standard Bible translates 9:10b as an indirect quote. However, in some languages a direct quote would be more natural. For example, the Good News Bible says:

they started discussing the matter, “What does this ‘rising from death’ mean?”

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.

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