The Greek that is translated as “neighbor” in English is rendered into Babatana as “different man,” i.e. someone who is not one of your relatives. (Source: David Clark)
In Inupiaq, it is rendered as “a person outside of your building,” in Tzeltal as “your back and side” (implying position of the dwellings), in Indonesian and in Tae’ as “your fellow-man,” in Toraja-Sa’dan it is “your fellow earth-dweller,” in Shona (translation of 1966) as “another person like you,” in Kekchí “younger-brother-older-brother” (a compound which means all one’s neighbors in a community) (sources: Bratcher / Nida and Reiling / Swellengrebel), and in Mairasi “your people” (source: Enggavoter 2004).
In Matt 19:19, Matt 22:39, Mark 12:31, Mark 12:33, Luke 10:27, it is translated into Ixcatlán Mazatec with a term that refers to a person who is socially/physically near. There is also another term for “neighbor” that means “fellow humans-outsiders” which was not chosen for these passages. (Source: Robert Bascom)
The Greek terms that are translated as “reconcile” and “reconciliation” in English are translated in various ways. Nida (1952, pp. 140) says this:
“The Inupiaq 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 Inupiaq 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 Inupiaq 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 Inupiaq 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 Greek that is translated as “tradition” in English is translated in Kekchí as “the old root-trunk” (in which the life of a people is likened to a tree), in Central Tarahumara, as “to live as the ancients did,” in Inupiaq as “sayings passed down from long-ago times,” in Navajo as “what their fathers of old told them to follow,” in Toraja-Sa’dan as “the ordinance maintained by the forefathers,” in Tzeltal as “word that has been kept from the ancients” (source for this and all above Bratcher / Nida), and in Gumuz as “the life of your fathers” (source: Loren Bliese).
In Obolo it is translated as orọmijọn̄: “the deeds of the ground” (source: Enene Enene).
The Hebrew that is translated as “harem” in English is translated in Inupiaq as relating to a group of women rather than a place.
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” (Inupiaq). (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).
The Hebrew that is translated as “tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes” is translated in Inupiaq in a manner to make clear that this action indicates sadness and/or despair, not anger.
See also sackcloth.
(To view the different translations of this term in a simplified graphical form on a new page, click or tap here.)
The Greek and Hebrew terms that are translated mostly as “righteous” as an adjective or personified noun or “righteousness” are most commonly expressed with concept of “straightness,” though this may be expressed in a number of ways. (Click or tap here to see the details)
Following is a list of (back-) translations of various languages:
- Bambara, Southern Bobo Madaré, Chokwe (“ululi”), Amganad Ifugao, Chol, Eastern Maninkakan, Toraja-Sa’dan, Pamona, Batak Toba, Bilua, Tiv: “to be straight”
- Laka: “to follow the straight way” or “to straight-straight” (a reduplicated form for emphasis)
- Highland Puebla Nahuatl, Kekchí, Muna: “to have a straight heart”
- Kipsigis: “to do the truth”
- Mezquital Otomi: “to do according to the truth”
- Huautla Mazatec: “to have truth”
- Yine: “to fulfill what one should do”
- Indonesian: “people who are true”
- Navajo: “to do just so”
- Anuak: “to do as it should be”
- Mossi: “to have a white stomach” (See also Seat of the Mind for traditional views of “ways of knowing, thinking, and feeling.”)
- Nuer: “way of right” (“there is a complex concept of “right” vs. ‘left’ in Nuer where ‘right’ indicates that which is masculine, strong, good, and moral, and ‘left’ denotes what is feminine, weak, and sinful (a strictly masculine viewpoint!) The ‘way of right’ is therefore righteousness, but of course women may also attain this way, for the opposition is more classificatory than descriptive.”) (This and all above from Bratcher / Nida except for Bilua: Carl Gross; Tiv: Rob Koops; Muna: René van den Berg)
- Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl: “the result of heart-straightening” (source: Nida 1947, p. 224)
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “entirely good” (when referred to God), “do good” (when referred to people)
- Carib: “level”
- Tzotzil: “straight-hearted”
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “walk straight” (source for this and three previous: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22)
- Aari: The Pauline word for “righteous” is generally rendered by “makes them without sin” in the Aari, sometimes “before God” is added for clarity. (Source: Loren Bliese)
- Inupiaq: “having sin taken away” (Source: Nida 1952, p. 144)
- Venda: “nothing wrong, OK” (Source: J.A. van Roy in The Bible Translator 1972, p. 418ff.)
- Guhu-Samane: “pobi” or “right” (also: “right (side),” “(legal) right,” “straightness,” “correction,” “south,” “possession,” “pertinence,” “kingdom,” “fame,” “information,” or “speech” — “According to Mid-Waria (Guhu-Samane) thinking there is a common core of meaning among all these glosses. Even from an English point of view the first five can be seen to be closely related, simply because of their similarity in English. However, from that point the nuances of meaning are not so apparent. They relate in some such a fashion as this: As one faces the morning sun, south lies to the right hand (as north lies to the left); then at one’s right hand are his possessions and whatever pertains to him; thus, a rich man’s many possessions and scope of power and influence is his kingdom; so, the rich and other important people encounter fame; and all of this spreads as information and forms most of the framework of the people’s speech.”) (Source: Ernest Richert in Notes on Translation 1964, p. 11ff.)
See also respectable, righteous and righteous (person)
The Hebrew that is translated in English as “(let the 10 sons) . . . be hanged” is translated in Inupiaq 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).
(To view the different translations of this term in a simplified graphical form on a new page, click or tap here.)
The concept of “forgiveness” is expressed in varied ways through translations. Following is a list of (back-) translations from some languages:
- Tswa, Inupiaq, Panao Huánuco Quechua: “forgetting about”
- Navajo: “to give back” (based on the idea that sin produces an indebtedness, which only the one who has been sinned against can restore)
- Huichol, Shipibo-Conibo, Eastern Highland Otomi, Uduk: “erase,” “wipe out,” “blot out”
- Highland Totonac, Huautla Mazatec: “to lose,” “cause to be lost,” “to make lacking”
- Tzeltal: “to lose another’s sin out of one’s heart”
- Lahu, Burmese: “to be released,” “to be freed”
- Ayacucho Quechua: “to level off”
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “to cast away”
- Chol: “to pass by”
- Wayuu: “to make pass”
- Kpelle: “to turn one’s back on”
- Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “to cover over” (a figure of speech which is also employed in Hebrew, but which in many languages is not acceptable, because it implies “hiding” or “concealment”)
- Tabasco Chontal, Huichol: “to take away sins”
- Toraja-Sa’dan, Javanese: “to do away with sins”
- San Blas Kuna: “erasing the evil heart” (this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
- Eggon: “to withdraw the hand”
- Mískito: “take a man’s fault out of your heart” (source of this and the one above: Kilgour, p. 80)
- Western Parbate Kham: “unstring someone” (“hold a grudge” – “have someone strung up in your heart”) (source: Watters, p. 171)
- Tzotzil: ch’aybilxa (“it has been lost”) (source: Aeilts, p. 118)
- Martu Wangka: “throw out badness” (source: Carl Gross)
- Mairasi: “dismantle wrongs” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
- Koonzime: “removing the bad deed-counters” (“The Koonzime lay out the deeds symbolically — usually strips of banana leaf — and rehearse their grievances with the person addressed.”) (Source: Keith and Mary Beavon in Notes on Translation 3/1996, p. 16)
- Amahuaca: “erasing” / “smoothing over” (“It was an expression the people used for smoothing over dirt when marks or drawings had been made in it. It meant wiping off dust in which marks had been made, or wiping off writing on the blackboard. To wipe off the slate, to erase, to take completely away — it has a very wide meaning and applies very well to God’s wiping away sins, removing them from the record, taking them away.”) (Source: Robert Russel, quoted in Walls / Bennett 1959, p. 193)
The Hebrew that is translated as “enemies” in English is translated into Inupiaq with a term that implies that it’s not just someone who hates you, but one who wants to do you harm.
(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:
- Inupiaq: “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)
