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Language: French
French (fra) is a(n) Indo-European language of Andorra, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland, France, French Guiana, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, French Southern Territories, United States, marked as not endangered
The now commonly-used German proverb wer (anderen) eine Grube gräbt, fällt selbst hinein, meaning any evil planned for others will come back to oneself was first coined in 1534 in the German Bible translation by Martin Luther. (Source: Zetzsche)
Other languages where this also has become a proverb which is based on Bible translations as well include Dutch (Wie een kuil graaft voor een ander… valt er zelf in, Danish (den, der graver en grav for andre, falder tit selv i den), Norwegian (Den som graver en grav, faller selv i den), French (Qui creuse un piège pour autrui y tombe), Spanish (El que cava una fosa para su prójimo, caerá en ella), Italian (Chi scava la fossa agli altri, ci cade dentro), or Latin (Qui fodit foveam alteri, incidet in eam).
The Hebrew olah (עֹלָה) originally means “that which goes up (in smoke).” English Bibles often translates it as “burnt-offering” or “whole burnt-offering,” focusing on the aspect of the complete burning of the offering.
The GreekSeptuagint and the LatinVulgate Bibles translate it as holokautōma / holocautōsis (ὁλοκαύτωμα / ὁλοκαύτωσις) and holocaustum, respectively, meaning “wholly burnt.” While a form of this term is widely used in many Romance languages (Spanish: holocaustos, French: holocaustes, Italian: olocausti, Portuguese: holocaustos) and originally also in the Catholic tradition of English Bible translations, it is largely not used in English anymore today (the preface of the revised edition of the Catholic New American Bible of 2011: “There have been changes in vocabulary; for example, the term ‘holocaust’ is now normally reserved for the sacrilegious attempt to destroy the Jewish people by the Third Reich.”)
Since translation into Georgian was traditionally done on the basis of the Greek Septuagint, a transliteration of holokautōma was used as well, which was changed to a translation with the meaning of “burnt offering” when the Old Testament was retranslated in the 1980’s on the basis of the Hebrew text.
In the Koongo (Ki-manianga) translation by the Alliance Biblique de la R.D. Congo (publ. in 2015) olah is translated as “kill and offer sacrifice” (source: Anicet Bassilua) and in Elhomwe as “fire offering.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
The English translation of Everett Fox uses offering-up (similarly, the German translation by Buber-Rosenzweig has Darhöhung and the French translation by Chouraqui montée).
The now commonly-used English idiom “the signs of the times” (meaning something that signifies the situation evident in the current times, often with a negative connotation) was first coined in 1526 in the English New Testament translation of William Tyndale (in the spelling ye signes of the tymes). (Source: Crystal 2010, p. 285)
Likewise, the German idiom Zeichen der Zeit (literally “signs of the times”) has also become an idiom with a similar meaning. This was coined in 1522 in the German New Testament translation by Martin Luther. (Source: Günther 2017, p. 90)
In French, the phrase signe des temps is likewise used as an idiom. (Source: Muller 1991, p. 61)
In Gbaya, the notion of refers to being broken or shattered into pieces is emphasized in the referenced verses with the ideophone gɛ́tɛ́-gɛ́tɛ́.
Note that in Zephaniah 2:14, the Gbaya translators translated along the lines of the FrenchTraduction œcuménique de la Bible which has “From the threshold onwards, there will be ruins” (Dès le seuil, ce seront des ruines) in line 6 — see also Translation commentary on Zephaniah 2:14.
Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
The Greek that is translated as “do not tempt God” or “do not put God to the test” is translated into Huallaga Huánuco Quechua as “don’t push God to do what you want.” Nida (1952, p. 50) says about this translation: “This sentence means more than even the English ‘tempt God,’ for our word ‘tempt’ implies too much the idea of inducing to sin, and the real point is that we should try not to force God.”
The French 1985 translation by Chouraqui translates it as “N’éprouve pas (“Do not test”) .” This follows Chouraqui’s method of translating YHWH in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)).
The name of “Onan” and the spilling of his semen has come to refer to “masturbation” in many modern languages, including Hebrew (אוננות / onanút), German (Onanie), Greek (αυνανισμός, avnanismós), Japanese (オナニー, onanī), French (onanisme), and Swedish (onani).
The Greek in Luke 3:1 that is typically translated in English as “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius” is translated by the ItalianLa Sua Parola è Vita translation as Passarono circa due decenni. Era adesso il quindicesimo anno del regno dell’imperatore Tiberio Cesare or “About two decades passed. It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius Caesar.” Cotrozzi (2019) explains: “There is a time gap between the last events recounted in 2:52 and those in 3:1. Jesus was 12 at the end of chapter 2 but about 30 years old when he began his work (3:23). As a result, some 18 years must have elapsed since 2:51-52. However, this is not readily apparent to most modern readers. All the more so since the gap coincides with a break at chapter level and is followed by the same name (Herod) as in 1:5 which seems to indicate continuity. What most readers are not aware of is that the same name refers in Luke to two different historical figures, Herod the Great (1:5) and his son Herod Antipas (3:1). Only a few Bibles — DanishBibelen på Hverdagsdansk and Den Nye Aftale, EnglishNew Living Translation, FrenchLa Parole de Vie, GermanDie Gute Nachricht and Neues Leben Übersetzung, and SpanishTraducción en lenguaje actual — make this clear in the text.”
The Hebrew that is translated as “Lord of hosts” in English (or: “Yahweh of Armies” [translation by John Goldingay, 2018], “Hashem, Master of Legions” [ArtScroll Tanach translation, 2011]) is translated in various ways: It’s translated as “God the Highest Ruler” in Kankanaey, as “Lord Almighty” in Newari, as Mndewa Imulungu or “Lord with all power” in Kutu (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext), as Wànjūnzhī Yēhéhuá (万军之耶和华) or “Jehovah of 10,000 [=all] armies” in Mandarin Chinese, as “Yawe God of the universe” in Mandinka, and in the German (Luther) Bible the second part of the name is transliterated: Herr Zebaoth or “Lord Zebaoth” (Swedish, Finnish and Latvian use the same translation strategy). The Russian Orthodox Synod translation uses a transliteration of the second part of the designation as well: Господь Саваоф / Gospod’ Savaof.
The traditional French translation of l’Eternel/Yahve/le Seigneur/Seigneur des armées (“Lord of the armies”) presents a problem when listened to, as Jean-Marc Babut explains (in The Bible Translator 1985, p. 411ff. ):
“For the hearer, the traditional translation l’Eternel/Yahvé/le Seigneur des armées can easily be taken in a bad sense: there is nothing, in fact, to prevent the listener from hearing l’Eternel désarmé, ‘the Eternal One disarmed’ or ‘stripped of his power’! (…). Thus the Bible en français courant [publ. 1997] has decided to use the expression Seigneur/Dieu de l’univers, “Lord/God of the Universe”. This formula, which has an undeniably liturgical ring, seems to have been favorably received by users.”
Other, later French Bibles who have chosen a similar strategy, include Parole de Vie (publ. 2017) with Seigneur de l’univers or Bible Segond 21 (publ. 2007) with l’Eternel, le maître de l’univers.
.” This follows Chouraqui’s method of translating YHWH in the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament (see