Language-specific Insights

your sins are forgiven

The Greek that is translated as “your sins are forgiven” in English” are translated in Lengo as “I forgive your sins.”

Paul Unger (see here ) explains:

“In many languages, ‘demoting the subject’ is a key function of the passive. But the Lengo language of the Solomon Islands has no passive option. All sentences are active, which means we can’t hide ‘whodunnit’ with a passive.

“This raises significant issues for translating the New Testament (…) [since] 3,588 of the Greek New Testament’s 28,114 verbs are passive.

“What is a Lengo translator to do? Sometimes the subject isn’t demoted, so we can simply switch subject and object to make an active sentence. In Mark 1:9, ‘Jesus was baptized by John’ becomes ‘John baptized Jesus.’ Sometimes we can add a generic third-person subject. Mark 1:14 changes from ‘after John had been arrested’ to ‘after they had arrested John.’

“But those strategies don’t always work. Take, for example, the healing of the paralyzed man. Rather than healing the man at the outset, Jesus, seeing the faith of his friends, said to the paralyzed man, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’

“By using a passive to demote the subject, Jesus set up a scene rich with meaning beyond a ‘mere’ healing. Jesus doesn’t say who forgave the man’s sins, just that it was accomplished. The teachers of the law picked up on the passive right away: ‘Why does this man speak that way? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Jesus then tips His hand by asking which was easier—to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk?’ And then the punchline: ‘So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . get up, pick up your mat, and go home.’

“We thought hard about how to render this section in Lengo. In the end, we had Jesus say, ‘My child, I forgive your sins.’ It’s somewhat unsatisfying to have Jesus tip His hand before the crucial moment, but it is an accurate and clear translation. Sometimes, the language compels us to make tradeoffs in attaining those hard goals.”

In Gun it is similarly translated as “I leave (forgive) your sins to you.” Since the Gun language also does not have a passive voice the translators had to choose an agent as well. “In this verse, the verb is ἀφίενταί (aphientai), 3 pl. indicative present passive, with no explicit agent; it is translated as ‘are forgiven.’ The sentence is transformed in Gun with the introduction of the pronoun Nyɛ (I), which represents Jesus as the implicit agent. The discussion that follows, where the scribes felt Jesus was usurping the right of God and actually forgiving sins, reinforces the argument that Jesus is the agent. If it were God, Jesus might not be criticized the way he was in that passage. However, in contrast to the Gun translation, in [the closely related languages of] Aja, Fon, and Gen, an impersonal pronoun is used as the agent.” (Source: Emmanuel K. Kogon in The Bible Translator 2017, p. 238ff. )

what you are to say will be given to you at that time

The Greek in Matthew 10:19 that is translated as “what you are to say will be given to you at that time” in English is translated in Gun as “what you will say, the Holy Spirit will give you.” Since the Gun language does not have a passive voice the translators had to choose an agent. “In Gun, Gbigbɔ Wíwé (Holy Spirit) is introduced as the agent, the one who will give to the disciples what they will say in that hour. In the Bible, the Holy Spirit is the one who endows people with force, courage, enlightenment (e.g., John 14.26; Acts 1.8; 9.31). Based on this argument and on the context, translators chose the Holy Spirit as the agent. However, in the Aja translation, God is the agent, while in Fon and Gen the impersonal pronoun is used [Aja, Fon, and Gen are closely related language].” (Source: Emmanuel K. Kogon in The Bible Translator 2017, p. 238ff. )