Text:

Instead of eiselthōn eis tēn sunagōgēn edidasken ‘entering into the synagogue he taught’ in Textus Receptus, Westcott and Hort, Souter, Vogels, Nestle, Lagrange, and Merk, the reading edidasken eis tōn sunagōgēn ‘he taught in the synagogue’ is adopted by Tischendorf, Soden, Turner, Taylor, and Kilpatrick. The evidence, both external and internal, entitles this reading to consideration.

Exegesis:

eisporeuontai … eiselthōn … edidasken ‘they went into … he entered … and taught’: on the change from the third plural of the first verb to the third singular of the next two verbs.

eisporeumai (4.19; 5.40; 6.56; 7.15, 18, 19; 11.2) ‘enter’: here is another use of the Marca historical present.

euthus tois sabbasin ‘immediately on the sabbath’: the phrase indicates the following Sabbath (cf. The Modern Speech New Testament, Lagrange).

tois sabbasin ‘on the sabbath.’ The plural sabbata ‘sabbaths’ is a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic sabathaʾ, taken as a plural form; the singular sabbaton ‘sabbath’ was formed from this (spurious) plural (cf. Abbott-Smith). The Septuagint uses both sabbaton (sg.) and sabbata (pl.). The meaning is not that of several Sabbaths; when feasts are mentioned the plural form is commonly used (cf. 6.21; 14.1; John 10.22). The dative case used to indicate time is, as Lagrange points out, a classical construction.

edidasken (17 times in Mark ‘taught’; although some do not agree, Moule sees in the imperfect tense of this verb what is called the inceptive force, i.e. an emphasis upon the beginning of the action ‘he began to teach.’ The Le Nouveau Testament. Version Synodale translates se mit à enseigner.

sunagōgē (1.23, 29, 39; 3.1; 6.2; 12.39; 13.9) ‘synagogue.’ The original meaning of the word is that of the act of ‘gathering’ from sunagō ‘gather,’ ‘collect’); the name is then applied to the place, or building in which this gathering takes place.

Translation:

Went into must in some languages be changed to ‘arrived at’ (Zapotec), for though one may ‘enter into’ a house, a town is regarded as a different type of object, and hence one may ‘arrive at’ but not ‘go in.’

At least at this first occurrence of Capernaum it may be wise to introduce a classifier, e.g. ‘they arrived at town Capernaum, its name’ (Tzeltal).

Immediately on the sabbath may be rendered as ‘as soon as it was…’ or ‘scarcely was it the sabbath when….’

Sabbath (see Bible Translating, 239-40) is most generally translated as ‘rest day’ or ‘day for resting’ (Central Tarahumara, South Bolivian Quechua, Kituba, Yucateco, Highland Totonac, Western Highland Purepecha, Chol, Cashibo-Cacataibo, Amganad Ifugao, Tagalog, Joloana); cf. ‘day of standstill (of work)’ in Toraja-Sa’dan. Some persons have used ‘God’s day,’ but this tends to be confused with Sunday. One translation employed a phrase ‘fear day,’ a traditional form of expression which was supposed to mean ‘day for reverence,’ but it was quite an inadequate means of expression. One can, of course, transliterate the word sabbath, but in some regions this may lead to difficulty, too. For example, the Spanish equivalent is sabado ‘Saturday,’ and any transliterated (or borrowed) form will suggest ‘Saturday,’ which is in no sense recognized as a day of rest or one with any special religious significance.

Some translators have transliterated synagogue, but on the whole this is not a very satisfactory procedure, despite the fact that there are difficulties in translation since an expression chosen for synagogue tends to be confused with forms used for ‘temple’ and ‘church.’ In Toraja-Sa’dan a synagogue is ‘meeting house for discussing matters concerning religious customs’; a church is ‘house where one meets on Sunday’ and a temple is ‘house that is looked upon as holy, that is sacred, that is taboo and where one may not set foot’ (lit. ‘house where one gets a swollen stomach’). In Bambara a synagogue is ‘a worship house’ and the temple is ‘house of God’; a church is designated by a borrowed term eglise. In Navajo a synagogue is a ‘house of gathering’ and the temple ‘a house of worship.’ In some languages it has seemed expedient to identify the difference between a church and a synagogue by qualifying a synagogue as being used by Jews, e.g. ‘Jews’ praise-God house’ (Southern Bobo Madaré). An even closer parallel to church is found in ‘church of Jews’ for synagogue (Mitla Zapotec, Highland Oaxaca Chontal). Because of the fact that the ancient synagogues were also used as a place for the instruction of children during the week, some translators have used ‘school house,’ but this is inadequate to convey the religious significance of the structure.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .