The Greek that is often translated as “laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” in English versions is translated quite differently in Pintupi-Luritja. Carl Gross explains: “It was explained to the translators that it was not an inn or motel to which they were going, but rather the guest room of their relatives, and there were so many people in town that all their relatives had already allowed other relatives to sleep in their guestrooms. But one of their relatives said they could use the downstairs stable in which the animals sheltered from the cold of the night. In response, the translators came up with: ‘Those two asked in vain their relatives in the town of Bethlehem to lie inside a house. Because many other people had entered and were lying in the houses, those two asked in vain. Having asked in vain, those two lay down on the windbreak-side of a house in a place that belonged to bullocks.'”
what sort of woman
The Greek that is translated as “what sort of woman” or similar in English is translated in Pintupi-Luritja with an idiom for prostitute: “This woman who is sitting here calls men and holds them one by one.”
angel
The Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic that is translated as “angel” in English versions is translated in many ways:
- Pintupi-Luritja: ngaṉka ngurrara: “one who belongs in the sky” (source: Ken Hansen quoted in Steven 1984a, p. 116.)
- Tetela, Kpelle, Balinese, and Mandarin Chinese: “heavenly messenger”
- Shilluk / Igede: “spirit messenger”
- Mashco Piro: “messenger of God”
- Batak Toba: “envoy, messenger”
- Navajo: “holy servant” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida 1961; Igede: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
- Central Mazahua: “God’s worker” (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.)
- Saramaccan: basia u Masa Gaangadu köndë or “messenger from God’s country” (source: Jabini 2015, p. 86)
- Mairasi: atatnyev nyaa or “sent-one” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
- Shipibo-Conibo: “word bringer” (source: James Lauriault in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 32ff. )
- Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
- Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
- Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
- Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
- Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between. One way to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) is used as in mi-tsukai (御使い) or “messenger (of God).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
See also angel (Acts 12:15) and this devotion on YouVersion .