The Greek in John 19:5 that is translated in English as “Here is the man” or “Behold the man” was translated in the Latin Vulgate translation of the 4th century as ecce homo.
“Ecce homo” has become to be known as an important sub-genre of Western Christian art of the 15th through the 17th century that shows the suffering Christ and again in the 20th century depicting images of human suffering in war and the holocaust.
It also is the title of Friedrich Nietzsche’s autobiography (publ. 1908).
The Greek and Hebrew that is translated as “morning star” or similar in English is translated in Dan as “the moon’s lovely wife.” (Source: Don Slager)
In Isaiah 14:12, the Latin Vulgate and, following that, the English Douay-Rheims and King James Version (Authorised Version) have translated this as Lucifer, originally meaning “light bearer. In Spanish translation it is either translated as Lucero (“morning star”) or Lucifer.
The Greek word that mean both “wind” and “spirit” (pneuma) in English allows for a number of word plays in the text of the New Testament, such as in John 3:8 and Acts 2:2 vs. Acts 2:4 (note that in the case of the example in Acts 2, two different words are used in Greek — pnoé and pneuma — but both come from the same root word).
Languages that have been able to maintain the word play — and, in the case of Acts 2 — strengthen it:
Another meaning of pnoé and pneuma in Acts 2 is “breath.” Which leads Iver Larsen to explain another translation solution: “I have been wondering why English versions translate the Greek word for breath pnoé with wind in Acts 2:2. The only other instance is in Acts 17:25: “Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath” (here and below New International Version). The verb pnéó means ‘blow’ and can be used for both a wind blowing and a puff of air from a person breathing on something or someone. Acts 2:2 is related to John 20:22: ‘And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.” A different verb is used, but semantically similar. I consider this as a foreshadowing or promise of Acts 2:2, so a connection would be nice to have. In Acts 2:2 I take the one breathing mightily on the disciples to be the resurrected Christ. Only after his resurrection could Jesus release the full power of the Spirit to the disciples. These verses are also connected to Genesis 2:7: ‘God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath (Septuagint: pnoé) of life.’ In Danish there is a close connection between “spirit” (ånd) and breath/breathe (ånde). So, in Acts 2:2 we [in The Bible in Everyday Danish, 2022] use the word ‘åndepust‘ which I cannot translate properly into English, but something like ‘puff of breath/spirit.'”
The 1985 French translation by Chouraqui, which uses souffle sacré or “sacred breath” for Holy Spirit, likewise uses souffle or “breath” in Acts 2:2 (source: Laurence Belling).
The Greek word that mean both (the organ) “tongue” and “language” (glossa) allows for a word play in Acts 2. While English still has some traces of “tongue” also being used as “language” (such as in “mother tongue“) it is generally considered archaic in that use, although a number of modern English Bible translations (New International Version, Christian Standard Bible, English Standard Version) maintain “tongue” as the word for “language” in Acts 2:4.
Other languages have a more natural match between the words for “tongue” and “language”:
The Hebrew in Ezekiel 9:4 and Ezekiel 9:6 that is translated as “mark” or “sign” in Protestant English Bibles was translated in the Latin Vulgate translation as signa thau or “signs of Thau.” The Hebrew had used tav (תָּו) which means “mark” or “sign,” but was interpreted here as strictly referring to tav (taw) (ת), the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
This is a tradition that Catholic Bibles, for into the 1940s which the Vulgate was the source version, have maintained until the present day. While the 16th century English Dhouay-Rheims version translated this directly as mark Thau, later versions either translated this as “X” (New American Bible, including its Revised Edition), but were more commonly using cross (Knox, Jerusalem Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, New Catholic Bible, Christian Community Bible). In a footnote it usually says something like this: “Literally, ‘with a tau.’ This was the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and in the old script a cross was the symbol for it.”
Indeed, this is what tav looked like historically:
Source: Wikipedia
Protestant Bibles in English, with the exception of the recent Evangelical Heritage Version (2019), all use a form of “mark.”
Other languages have the same tradition. The French Catholic La Bible de Jérusalem uses croix, the Mandarin Chinese Sigao translation says 一個十字記號 (yīge shízì jìhào) or “a mark in the sign of a cross,” the Portuguese Bíblia Ave Maria uses cruz, the Polish Biblia Tysiąclecia uses Taw (and mentions in a footnote that taw used to be written in the form of a cross), the German EinheitsübersetzUng has Taw as well, and the Spanish El Libro del Pueblo de Dios has “T.”
This last translation (“T”) also found its way into a series of stained glass window from the Three choir windows in the Marienkirche, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, of the 14th century (note the “T” in the antichrist’s halo as well as on the forehead on his followers):
Source: Das Antichristfenster by Ludger Каup, 2010
Incidentally, the German word for devil is “Teufel” (in the spelling “tiuvel” in the 14th century), which likely helped the choice of the “T” for the mark.
See also other stained glass windows from the Marienkirche in Frankfurt.
One of the more well-known Bible translation stories is the Latin translation in the Vulgate (4th century by St. Jerome of Stridon) that supposedly creates a pun with the translation of “evil” in the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (translated in the Vulgate as lignumque scientiae boni et mali) and the fruit that is mentioned in Genesis 3:3, 3:6 and 3:12. According to the story, the Hebrew word that is translated as “fruit” in English was translated as mālum (“apple”), thus creating a pun with the Latin word malum which is used in the form mali in the translation for the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (see above). This in turn, according to the story, created the connection between the “forbidden fruit” and the apple in art history, anatomical terminology (“Adam’s apple” and similar expressions in many European languages for the laryngeal prominence) and the public imagination.
Alas, this turns out to be an urban myth. The Vulgate (as well as the older Vetus Latina) both use frūctus (“fruit”) in Genesis 3 for peri (פְרִי), the Hebrew word for fruit. While it’s possible that the use of malum in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was implicitly understood as pointing to an apple, it’s not likely since there is a marked difference in pronunciation: /ˈmaː.lum/ (“apple”) vs. /ˈma.lum/ (“evil”). Maybe it’s more likely that the apple was the likely choice in the European imagination because of its prominence as were grapes, figs, pomegranates, or etrogs in the Jewish imagination.
With contributions by Seppo Sipilä, Reinier de Blois, and Harry Harm.
In Low German “fruit” is translated as Appeln or “apples” in Genesis 3:3 and 3:6 (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1937, republ. 2006).
The Hebrew that is translated as “ornamented robe” or similar in English is translated in Kim as mwaɗak or “multi-colored (robe),” following the traditional translation (Greek Septuagint: χιτῶνα ποικίλον; Latin Vulgate: tunicam polymitam; English King James/Authorised Version: coat of many colours; German Luther translation: bunter Rock etc.)
In Gbaya, the pattern of the robe is emphasized with ŋunyuŋ, an ideophone that refers to anything that is spotted, speckled, or marbled. Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Joseph and His Clothing .
The Greek in Colossians 4:10 that is translated into English as “cousin” is translated into Banaro as “Barnabas’s younger brother.”
William Butler (see here ) tells this story:
“For ‘cousin,’ Samuel had used the word donghang, the singular form of the word we had used for ‘brothers’ in other places in the book. However, the checking committee rejected the singular form being used in that way. They insisted that a proper kinship term be used. That is where our problem began. There is no Banaro term that means the same as ‘cousin.’ In the Banaro system, all your uncles and aunts are called by the kinship term for ‘father’ and ‘mother.’ Therefore, it is only logical that their children, your first cousins, are referred to by the same term as ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’ And guess what you call their children? ‘Son’ and ‘daughter’! So you see there isn’t any room in the system for cousins, as the English word is used.
“Somewhere in the discussion I remembered that we weren’t translating from English but Greek, so I looked up the Greek word that is translated cousin in English, hoping to find some help. The Greek word is more specific than the English word, specifying a first cousin. Therefore, we needed to use the correct Banaro term for a first cousin: ‘brother.’ Not so hard, eh?
“But in Banaro there is no general kinship term for brother. Age rank is important in the culture so one must specify older brother or younger brother. Considering that Barnabas seemed to take Mark under his wing and Mark’s action in turning back on the journey he started out on with Paul and Barnabas, we decided that Mark was likely younger. He is, therefore, ‘Barnabas’s younger brother.’ You have to realize that when a Banaro person reads this he will not automatically assume that Barnabas and Mark are siblings of the same parents but will consider the wide range of relationships covered by this term in their culture. We will also have a footnote trying to further define the kinship relationship that likely existed between the two men.”
Otherwise, translations differ between translating the Greek into “cousin” or “nephew.” The English King James Version / Authorised Version has sister’s son (which it took over from Tyndale’s translation), the German Luther translation has Neffe (“nephew”) (changed to Vetter or “cousin” by the revision of 1956), many Orthodox translations that followed the Church Slavic translation (first publ. in the 9th century), translated under the leadership of the brothers Cyril and Methodius who grew up speaking Greek in today’s Thessaloniki, as well as the latest Modern Greek versions all have “nephew.” The reason is most likely the shift of meaning of anepsios (ἀνεψιός) between Koine Greek and Modern Greek from “cousin” to “nephew” which is being ignored by Greek-speaking translators. While it’s not clear why Luther and Tyndale also chose a form of “nephew,” it’s possible that they were being taught Greek by (Modern) Greek-speaking who might not have been aware of that shift in meaning as well.
In the Latin tradition, the Latin Vulgate translates this as consobrinus or “the child of a mother’s brother.” Other languages that, like Latin, don’t have a generic term for “cousin” without an indication whether the cousin comes from the mother’s or father’s side, decide differently. Examples of historic translations in Coptic, Classical Syriac, Classical Armenian, or Old Georgian it is translated as “the child of a father’s sibling.” Why Tyndale and, following him, the King James Version (see above) make (an unforced) decision here is not known. (Source: David Clark in The Bible Translator 2014, p. 349fff. )
Seer also cousin.
