Language-specific Insights

character

The Greek that is translated as “character” (or “experience”) in English is translated in the following ways:

  • Pitjantjatjara: “we become with strength and don’t fall, and God seeing us is pleased” (source: Carl Gross)
  • Hopi: “maturity”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “standing firm”
  • Central Tarahumara: “being called as doers of good”
  • Miahuatlán Zapotec: “showing people we really believe in Christ”
  • Central Mazahua as “knowing that we passed well” (source for this and four above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • Bariai “God is happy with us because we overcome/surpass various kinds of testings” (source: Bariai Back Translation)

See also complete verse (Romans 5:4).

despise

The Greek that is translated as “despise” in English is translated as

sexual promiscuity

The Greek that is translated in English as “sexual promiscuity” or similar is translated as

See also sexual immorality / fornication and adultery.

adultery

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “adultery” in English (here etymologically meaning “to alter”) is typically understood as “marital infidelity.” It is (back-) translated in the following ways:

  • Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
  • Yucateco: “pair-sin”
  • Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
  • Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog” (see also licentiousness)
  • Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage”
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
  • Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
  • Tzeltal: “practice illicit relationship with women”
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “live with some one who isn’t your wife”
  • Central Tarahumara: “sleep with a strange partner”
  • Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and seven above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • German: Ehebrecher or “marriage breaker” / Ehe brechen or “breaking of marriage” (source: Zetzsche)
  • In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source: David Clark)
  • In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)
  • Likewise in Hiligaynon: “commit-adultery-with-a-man or commit-adultery-with-a-woman” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)

See also adultery, adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.

mystery

The Greek that is translated as “mystery” in English is translated as “wisdom which was hidden” in Mezquital Otomi, as “that was not possible to be understood before” in Huehuetla Tepehua, as “which was not known in time past,” and in Central Tarahumara (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

exchanged natural relations for unnatural

The Greek that is translated as “exchanged natural relations for unnatural” or similar in English is translated as

  • “stop their work with men and begin to do wrong things with one another” in Hopi
  • “women no longer did as women do but rather knew each other” in Isthmus Zapotec
  • “changed their lives. They didn’t live with a man. Among themselves they sinned against each other” in Huehuetla Tepehua
  • “even the women, one with another, strangely doing evil” in Central Tarahumara
  • “lay down with other women as they should not do” in Yatzachi Zapotec (source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • “women no longer put their throat on [pay attention to; have affection for], with the result that they even women stimulate each other’s genitalia” in Mairasi (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • “women became lesbian and exchanged the natural sexual relationships with unnatural ones” in he German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999)
  • “women even left their husbands and married each other” in Kupsabiny (source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • See also complete verse (Romans 1:26).

do not be conformed to this world𖺗 but be transformed by the renewal of your mind

The Greek that is translated in English as some form of “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” is translated into Bilua as “you must not follow this generation’s behavior, but you must allow God in your heart that he make you new in your life and thinking.”

The first part of this phrase (“(don’t be) conformed to this world”) is translated as “live doing as other people do who live here in the world” in Central Tarahumara, as “do like mankind does, people who are here on the earth” in Yatzachi Zapotec, aw “do like people in this sinful world” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui, and “the life of those who walk in sin” in Mezquital Otomi.

The second part (“be transformed by the renewal of your mind”) is translated as “let the way you think become new and changed” in Chicahuaxtla Triqui, as “change so that what you think may become new” in Sayula Popoluca, as “let God change your head-hearts in order that your thoughts will he changed” in Yatzachi Zapotec, as “be different since the Holy Spirit has made your mind new” in Huehuetla Tepehua, and as “in a different way think well” in Central Tarahumara. (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)

go in peace

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “go in peace” into English is an idiomatic expression of farewell which is translatable in other languages as an idiomatic expression as well:

    “go with sweet insides” (Shilluk)
    “rejoice as you go” (Central Mazahua)
    “go in quietness of heart” (Chol)
    “go happy” (Highland Puebla Nahuatl)
    “being happy, go” (Central Tarahumara)
    “go and sit down in your heart” (Tzeltal) (source for this and five above: Bratcher / Nida)

  • “have a smooth interior and go” (Bariai) (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • “Go with-your-liver-good” (Mairasi) (source Enggavoter 2004)

  • “Go home with goodness of your life” (Uma (source: Uma Back Translation)
  • “Go home now, and may your situation be good.” (Western Bukidnon Manobo) (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • “Go with your mind at-peace” (tip_language language=”3135″]Kankanaey[/tip_language]) (source: Kankanaey Back Translation)