The Greek that is translated with “deny himself” or “deny oneself” is according to Bratcher / Nida “without doubt one of the most difficult expressions in all of Mark to translate adequately.” These are many of the (back-) translations:
- Tetelcingo Nahuatl: “not accept self”
- Amganad Ifugao and South Bolivian Quechua: “forget self”
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “have no regard for oneself”
- Toraja-Sa’dan: “not bother oneself about oneself”
- Huautla Mazatec: “cover up oneself”
- San Miguel El Grande Mixtec: “not worship oneself”
- Tzeltal: “stop doing what one’s own heart wants”
- Yaka: “let go that which he wants to do oneself”
- Cashibo-Cacataibo: “say, I will not do just what I want to do”
- Tzotzil: “say, I do not serve for anything” (in the sense of having no personal value)
- Sapo: “not do what is passing through one’s mind”
- Central Mazahua: “not take constant thought for oneself”
- Tabasco Chontal: “quit what one wants”
- Highland Totonac: “undo one’s own way of thinking”
- Dan: “put one’s own things down”
- Kekchí: “despise oneself”
- Kituba: “refuse oneself”
- Javanese: “turn one’s back on oneself”
- Southern Bobo Madaré: “disobey oneself” (in the sense of denying one’s own wishes)
- Huastec: “leave oneself at the side”
- Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “leave one’s own way”
- Loma: “take one’s mind out of oneself completely”
- Panao Huánuco Quechua: “say, I do not live for myself”
- Mitla Zapotec: “say No to oneself” (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Copainalá Zoque: “forgetting self”
- Huallaga Huánuco Quechua: “declare, I do not live for myself” (source: Nida 1952, p. 154)
- Galela: “put self down” (source: Howard Shelden in Kroneman 2004, p. 501)
- Mairasi: “shuffle out of one’s vision (=forget) everything which is one’s own” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
- Q’anjob’al: “do not belong to oneself any longer” (source: Newberry and Kittie Cox in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 91ff. )
- Achi: “don’t do only what one wants to do”
- Chipaya: “leave one’s own way of living” (source for this and above: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)