inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (John 12:38 - Rom. 10:16 - Isa. 53:1)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this quotation from Isaiah 53:1 (“Lord who has believed our report?” in many English translations) “does Isaiah mean the message of God and himself (hence inclusive) or the message he and others were giving out? The Hebrew form [translated into English as] ‘what we heard,’ together with the Greek form (translated as) ‘what is heard of us,’ gives the clue that it should be exclusive, the message that he and others were giving out.” (Source: Velma B. Pickett in The Bible Translator 1964, p. 88f. )

The Jarai and Adamawa Fulfulde translations, however, use the inclusive pronoun for this (“referring to the speakers and their fellow Judeans in exile”), following the recommendation of Ogden / Sterk.

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