1:45a

Philip found Nathanael: Nathanael may be the same person as the apostle Bartholomew mentioned in the other three Gospels (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14). However, there is no direct evidence of this, apart from the link with Philip in the lists of the twelve (12) apostles. You should not mention it in the text.

1:45b

and told him: The pronoun him refers to Nathanael. In some languages it is more natural to use both names. For example:

and Philip said to Nathanael

We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the prophets foretold: Moses lived perhaps thirteen hundred or fourteen hundred (1300 or 1400) years before Christ. The Jews respected him as the author of the Law. The prophets all lived several hundred years before Christ. In some languages it is natural to indicate that these were ancient figures. For example:

We (excl.) have found the person that Moses ⌊long ago⌋ wrote about in our (incl.) Law. The prophets also wrote about him.

We have found the One: The Messiah was not lost, but nobody knew who or where the Messiah was. See the note on 1:41b. You may want to translate this in a way that shows that the men had identified the Messiah. For example:

We have found the very person Moses and the prophets wrote about. (New Living Translation (2004))

We: This pronoun is exclusive and does not include Nathanael. Probably, Philip had talked with Peter and Andrew, and the pronoun includes at least those three men.

the Law, the One the prophets: The phrases the Law and the prophets together refer to the entire Jewish or Hebrew Scriptures. Today Christians refer to this as the “Old Testament,” but it was not called that during Jesus’ lifetime. That was because the New Testament was not yet written and there were not two testaments to distinguish. In some languages it may be natural to translate these phrases in this way:

the books containing our laws…the books of prophecies

the Law: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the Law here refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, Genesis through Deuteronomy. They contain historical material, prophesies, and poetry as well as laws. Philip was probably thinking about the prophet that Moses wrote about in Deuteronomy 18:15, 18–19.

the prophets: A prophet was a man who spoke as a representative of God. He told people what God revealed to him. When Philip referred to the prophets, he meant the ones whose writings are in the Hebrew Scriptures. See the note on “prophet” at 1:21d and 1:23b. There are many passages in the prophets that predict the coming of the Messiah.

1:45c

of Nazareth: Jesus came from Nazareth. He was not born there, but he grew up there. Nazareth was probably a very small settlement, only a village. In some languages you may need to indicate this. For example:

from ⌊the village of⌋ Nazareth

the son of Joseph: In Jesus’ culture, people did not have a surname or family name. Instead, they were identified by their given name and their father’s name. Joseph had cared for Jesus and brought him up as his son.

© 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.