SIL Translator’s Notes on John 11:46

11:46a

But: The word But introduces a contrast. While some people who saw the miracle believed, others reported what happened to the Pharisees. They were opposed to Jesus.

some of them went to the Pharisees: The phrase some of them refers to some of the Jewish people from Judea. They were not among the “many” Jewish people who believed in Jesus (11:45a). These Jews reported what Jesus did to the Pharisees. These Pharisees had not been there and were opposed to Jesus.

the Pharisees: The Pharisees were a Jewish religious group or party. It was very important to them to obey all of the Jewish religious laws very carefully and exactly. Here are some ways to translate this word:

Transliterate the word Pharisees according to the sounds of your language and indicate that it refers to people. For example:

Farisi members
-or-
Parise adherents

Transliterate the word Pharisees and indicate that it refers to a group of people with certain beliefs. For example:

people belonging to the Farise religious group
-or-
members of the religious group called the Farasi

See how you translated this in 1:24 and see the note there.

11:46b

told them what Jesus had done: The people who went to the Pharisees told the Pharisees that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. Here are other ways to translate this expression:

reported what he had done (Revised English Bible)
-or-
told them about Jesus’ actions/deeds

what Jesus had done: The Greek text here uses the plural form for what (“what things”), but it mainly refers to Jesus’ raising of Lazarus. See how you translated “what Jesus did” in 11:45b.

General Comment on 11:46

In some languages it may be natural to use direct speech for what these people told the Pharisees. If you do that, it may be necessary to supply information about what Jesus did. For example:

and told them, “Jesus has ⌊raised a man from the dead⌋ .”

© 2020 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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