The Greek that is translated as “adultery” (typically understood as “marital infidelity”) in English is (back-) translated in the following ways:
- Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
- Yucateco: “pair-sin”
- Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
- Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog”
- Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage.”
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- In Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
- In Hakha Chin the usual term for “adultery” applies only to women, so the translation for the Greek term that is translated into English as “adultery” was translated in Hakha Chin as “do not take another man’s wife and do not commit adultery.”
- In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source for this and three above: David Clark)
- In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)
See also adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.
The Greek that is rendered as “faithful” in English is (back-) translated in various ways:
See also faith / believe.
The Hebrew that is translated as “peace” in English is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “absence of conflict” (not tranquility).
See also go to your fathers (ancestors) in peace and peace (absence of strife).
The Greek that is translated as “swear (an oath)” or “vow” is translated as “God sees me, I tell the truth to you” (Tzeltal), “loading yourself down” (Huichol), “to speak-stay” (implying permanence of the utterance) (Sayula Popoluca), “to say what he could not take away” (San Blas Kuna), “because of the tight (i.e. “binding”) word which he had said to her face” (Guerrero Amuzgo) or “strong promise” (North Alaskan Inupiatun). (Source for all above: Bratcher / Nida)
In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matt. 6:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matt 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)
Seer also swear (promise) and Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’, or ‘No, No’.
The Greek terms that are translated as “reconcile” and “reconciliation” in English are translated in various ways. Nida (1952, pp. 140) says this:
“The North Alaskan Inupiatun describe reconciliation in the simple terms of ‘making friends again.’ That is to say, ‘God was in Christ making friends again with the world.’ The Uduk in the Sudan express this same truth, but in the rather interesting phrase ‘meet, snapping fingers together again.’ This expression is derived from the Uduk’s practice of snapping fingers together when they meet each other. Instead of shaking hands, they extend their thumbs and middle fingers and snap fingers together, but only friends will do this. Men who have something against each other refuse to acknowledge each other in this way. And so it is that the natural man is an enemy of God; he refuses to snap fingers with God, but God has come to reconcile man to Himself and through Jesus Christ has brought man into fellowship with Himself. Man and God may now meet ‘to snap fingers together again.’
“The Tai Dam of Indo-China employ quite a different figure of speech. They say that reconciliation consists in ‘rubbing off the corners.’ This does not refer to social acceptability, but to rubbing off the corners so that two objects, meant for each other, will fit together. Man is regarded as being incapable of fitting into the plan and fellowship of God because of the sin which has deformed him and which stands out as an ugly growth on his personality. The corners of iniquity must be rubbed off so that man may be reconciled to God and made to fit into God’s eternal plan for the world.”
In Muna, the phrase manusia suli dopometaa bhe Lahata’ala: “man has-a-good-relationship/is-in-harmony-again with God” is used for “reconciled.” (Source: René van den Berg)
The Hebrew that is translated in English as “big fish,” “large fish,” or “great fish” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “whale.”
Steve Berneking tells this story (see here):
“In the whaling community of the Inupiat in northern Alaska, the whale is all but revered and respected as one of God’s creatures which bring life and sustenance. I was recently with our Inupiatun Bible Translation Team, working on the Book of Jonah. In popular culture, as we all know, the ‘big fish’ in this tale is often equated with what we know as the whale; Sunday school curriculum teaches it; art recreates it; collective memory recalls it. Therefore, they wanted an illustration of a white whale in their publication of the Book of Jonah.
“As a biblical scholar, I know this is erroneous and irresponsible. A biblical scholar assumes a ‘big fish’ is simply to be taken as a ‘big fish.’ The identity of this fish is not necessary to understand the tale: that God provided it is the point. As a Bible translator, hopefully a culturally sensitive one, however, I was quickly reminded in that moment that this Inupiatun community ‘needed’ that ‘Jonah’s big fish’ to be nothing other than a whale.
“This made the tale of Jonah even more meaningful because they ‘read’ the source of God’s deliverance of Jonah as the same source of God’s provision of food and sustenance to them.”
The Hebrew that is translated as “harem” in English is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as relating to a group of women rather than a place.
The Hebrew that is translated as “tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun in a manner to make clear that this action indicates sadness and/or despair, not anger.
See also sackcloth.
The Greek that is translated as “in spirit and truth” in English is translated in Aguaruna as “praising in his heart, thinking truly” and in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “not merely by outward habits, but by spirit and by truth.” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125)
(To view the different translations of this term in a simplified graphical form on a new page, click or tap here.)
The Greek that is often rendered in English as “to be converted” or “to turn around” is (back-) translated in a number of ways:
- North Alaskan Inupiatun: “to change completely”
- Purepecha: “to turn around”
- Highland Totonac: “to have one’s life changed”
- Huautla Mazatec: “to make pass over bounds within”
- San Blas Kuna: “turn the heart toward God”
- Chol: “the heart turns itself back”
- Highland Puebla Nahuatl: “self-heart change”
- Pamona: “to turn away from, unlearn something”
- Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “to turn around from the breast”
- Luvale: “to return”
- Balinese: “to put in a new behavior” (compare “repentance“: “to put on a new mind”)
- Tzeltal: “to cause one’s heart to return to God” (compare “repentance”: “to cause one’s heart to return because of one’s sin”)
- Pedi: “to retrace one’s step” (compare “repentance”: “to become untwisted”)
- Uab Meto: “to return” (compare “repentance”: “to turn the heart upside down”)
- Northwestern Dinka: “to turn oneself” (compare “repentance”: “to turn the heart”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Central Mazahua: “changing the heart” (compare “repentance”: “turning back the heart”) (source: Nida 1952, p. 40)
- Western Kanjobal: “to molt” (like a butterfly) (source: Nida 1952, p. 136)
- Latvian: atgriezties (verb) / atgriešanās (noun) (“turn around / return”) which is also the same term being used for “repentance” (source: Katie Roth)
The Hebrew that is translated in English as “(let the 10 sons) . . . be hanged” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun in such a manner that it’s clear that the bodies which will be hanged, as the men are already dead (see Esther 9:10 and 12).
The Greek that is translated in English as “rooster crowed” or “cock crowed” is translated in North Alaskan Inupiatun as “the bird called.” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)