SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 16:5

Paragraph 16:5

In this paragraph, the women arrived at the tomb and entered it. Inside, they met a young man dressed in a white robe.

16:5a

When they entered the tomb: The women arrived at the tomb and went into it. In some languages it may be helpful to mention that they arrived. For example:

When the women came to the tomb, they entered it…

they: The pronoun they refers to the women whose names were mentioned in 16:1.

entered the tomb: The women entered the tomb in the same way people enter a small room. They were not going down into a hole. John 20:5 mentions that it was necessary to stoop to enter the tomb. This was because the opening to the tomb was probably about one meter square.

tomb: See how you translated tomb in 16:2b and 16:3b.

16:5b

they saw a young man: The women saw someone who appeared to be a young man. Use a general term that refers to a man who is old enough to marry.

Most Bible scholars say that the young man was one of the angels that Matthew and Luke mentioned in their accounts of Jesus’ resurrection. Mark did not say that the young man was an angel, so you should not specify that in the text here. You may want to include a footnote that explains the differences between Mark and the other two gospel accounts. For example:

This young man was an angel sent from God. See Matthew 28:2 and Luke 24:4.
-or-
Matthew 28:2 and Luke 24:4 describe this person as an angel sent from God. This angel looked like a young man, so that was how Mark described him.

dressed in a white robe: The young man was wearing a white robe. Use a general term for a long outer garment. See how you translated robe in 12:38c, where the same Greek word is used.

16:5c

sitting on the right side: The young man was sitting to the right of the women as they entered the tomb. You may need to make it clear that he was sitting inside the tomb. The text does not say what he was sitting on. If the verb sitting in your language requires that you say what he was sitting on, you could use a more general verb here. For example:

waiting there on their right side

16:5d

they were alarmed: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates here as alarmed indicates that the women were amazed and afraid.

© 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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