6:62
Then what will happen if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before?: Like 6:61b, this is a rhetorical question. Jesus was asking his followers to consider what they would think if they saw him go back to heaven.
Here are other ways to translate this rhetorical question:
Suppose, then, that you should see the Son of Man go back up to the place where he was before? (Good News Translation)
-or-
Then what will you think if you see the Son of Man ascend to heaven again? (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
If you saw the Son of Man ascend to heaven again, what would you say about that?
the Son of Man: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the Son of Man is more literally “the Son of the human/person.” Jesus was referring to himself. He used this title to imply two things:
(a) He was a true human being, and he represented all people.
(b) He came from God and had authority from God.
Try to use an expression that implies both meanings. Here are some possible translations:
the Human-born
-or-
the True Man from God/Heaven
-or-
the Representative of Humanity/Humans
Translate this title as you did in other verses, for example, 1:51; 3:13, 14. See also Key Biblical Terms, Son of Man.
Jesus was referring to himself. If a literal translation would mean that he was referring to someone else, it may be necessary to say:
⌊me,⌋ the Son of Man
ascend: This word refers to when Jesus would ascend (go up) to heaven after he was resurrected.
where He was before: This clause refers to heaven. Jesus lived in heaven before he came to earth. Here he referred to returning to heaven after his resurrection. In some languages it may be necessary to make this explicit. For example:
heaven where he came from (Contemporary English Version)
© 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.