Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 3:11:
- Uma: “This is the news that you heard from the first: we must love one another.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “When you first trusted in Isa Almasi you heard this preaching that we (incl.) should love each other.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “It’s necessary that each one of us love our companions. This is what was taught to us (incl.) when we first believed.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “The true teaching that you have been hearing since when- you -believed, it is this: it is necessary that we love-one-another.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “This indeed is what you heard which was taught to you from long ago, that we value one another.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “The word which you heard at the first says that each one of us must love all our fellow believers.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “And this word you have heard since you began to trust in Christ, that we must love our fellows each of us the other.”
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “Because this is the command that we were told at the beginning, that we love one another.”
- Tzotzil: “Thus says God’s word that you heard when you believed: Love one another, it says.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
- Candoshi-Shapra: “This message is the one which you first heard. ‘May they love one another,’ he said and ordered. This in the one.”
- Yanesha’: “These are words which you have heard from the beginning thus we are to characteristically love one another.”
- Aguaruna: “That which you heard, when you first heard, it is this word, ‘You all love one another,’ that.” (Source for this and two above: Mildred Larson in Notes on Translation, July 1965, p. 1-15)
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 4:20:
- Uma: “A person who says: ‘I love God,’ and he hates his relatives, why, he is lying. For if he does not love his relatives whom he sees, how much more so [will he not love] God whom he doesn’t see.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “If someone says that he loves God but he hates his fellow-man, he is lying. Because if he does not love his fellow-man whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If anyone says that God is very dear in his breath but he acts against his companions he is a liar. For it’s not possible for him to love God whom he has not seen if he does not also love his companion who he has seen already.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “If someone says that he loves God while-at-the-same-time he hates his fellow, he is a liar. Because if he has no love for his fellow that he sees, it is not possible that he would love God whom he has not seen.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “Supposing someone says, ‘I hold God dear now,’ but if he still has a sibling in believing whom he is ignoring/spurning, then that holding dear of his is only his lie. Because if he doesn’t yet value his companion whom he’s been seeing all this time, how could he hold God dear whom he can’t see?” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “The person who says he loves God and who hates his brother is a liar. Because he who does not love his brother, one whom he sees, how is it possible that he loves God whom he cannot see?” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “If we say that we love God, and we hate our fellows, we lie. If we do not love our follows-and we see them -, how could we manage to possibly love God when we do not see him?”
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “But if one tries to say, ‘I love (esteem) God,’ he lies if he hates his sibling, if he doesn’t love his sibling whom he sees, who lives here, he can’t love (esteem) God who isn’t seen here.”
- Tzotzil: “If we say ‘I love God,’ if we hate our brethren, we lie for sure. Because if we do not love our brethren that here we continually see them, ¿Where could it be that we love God whose face we have never seen?” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
- Candoshi-Shapra: “The one who says ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, that one is a liar, that’s what he is. One who his brother, even though seeing, doesn’t love, therefore even more so God not then seeing would he love?”
- Yanesha’: “If any one says, I, I love our Father, however, he despises his countrymen, he of a truth, is just deceiving. If he does not love his countrymen whom he sees, he is not able to love our Father, not seeing him.”
- Aguaruna: “He who ‘I love God,’ saying, yet hates his brother, that one he lying he says it. His brother, although seeing him, if he does not love him, God, the one whom he has not seen, how can he love?”
- Murui Huitoto: “The one who says that I love God lies if he hates his brother. He sees his brother but doesn’t love him. He doesn’t see God, therefore, how will he love God?” (Source for this and three above: Mildred Larson in Notes on Translation, July 1965, p. 1-15)
Following are a number of back-translations of 2 John 1:10:
- Uma: “So, if there are religion teachers who arrive at your village who bring teaching that is-different-than/at-odds-with this teaching, don’t ask-them-to-stop-in at your house, and don’t greet them.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “Therefore if there is a person coming to you and his teaching is different, don’t receive him in your house. Don’t even greet him.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If anyone arrives teaching a doctrine, and it is not the true doctrine taught by Christ which he teaches, don’t you bring him up into your houses. Don’t you also welcome him.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “So if there is someone who goes to you whose teaching is different, don’t have-him -enter your houses. Neither are you to (lit. Never-mind if you don’t) even greet-him.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “Therefore whoever comes to you bringing different from this teaching, don’t cause him to come up into your house and don’t even greet him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “If one arrives to where you live saying that he will teach God’s word and does not teach the word which Christ taught, do not give him a resting place at your houses, and do not greet him.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “If any person comes where you are to teach you, but he does not teach what Christ taught, you should not receive him into your houses and you should not tell him, ‘Come in, brother.'”
- Eastern Highland Otomi: “If one arrives there saying he speaks God’s Word, but if he doesn’t say the same as the teaching of Christ, but then we won’t give him hospitality in our homes, neither will we ask God’s help in regard to him.”
- Isthmus Zapotec: “If someone comes to your house and does not follow these words, don’t receive him in your house nor say to him. ‘Come in, you are in your house.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.
The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):
“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.
“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”
In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “And since Jesus knew that the Pharisees had realized that more people were following him, we left the district of Judea and we returned to the district of Galilee.”
In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.
The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):
“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.
“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”
In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “Then we went with Jesus and stayed on the other side of the river Jordan . . .”
In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.
The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):
“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.
“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”
In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “Then Jesus said to me . . .”
In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.
The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):
“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.
“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”
In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “Simon Peter said to us . . . And we said to him, ‘We also will go along.’ Then we went along to the shore and we got into a boat. But that night we did not catch anything.”
Following are a number of back-translations of John 1:21:
- Yatzachi Zapotec: “They said to him, ‘Who are you then? Are you Elijah, the person who spoke God’s word long ago?’ And he said to them, ‘I am not he.’ Then they said to him again, ‘Are you the person who is to come to speak the Word of God to us?’ And he answered and said to them, ‘Not I.’ “
- Ojitlán Chinantec: ” What then? Are you Elijah: Who are you? Are you the prophet of God called Elijah? I am not: I am not Elijah.”
- Aguaruna: No, I am not Elijah. Are you the prophet: But what are you? Are you the teller of God’s word who will come, that one?”
- Huehuetla Tepehua: “Are you that man who will tell God’s words?”
- Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac: “Are you the prophet of God for whom we are waiting?”
- Isthmus Mixe: “Are you God’s messenger, the one Moses talked about?” (Source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
- Uma: “They asked further: ‘If thus, who are you (sing.)? Are you (sing.) the prophet Elia?’ Yohanes said: ‘No also.’ They asked further: ‘Are you (sing.) perhaps the big prophet who was promised long ago, who they said would come to the world?’ Yohanes said: ‘No also.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “‘Na, who are you?’ they said. ‘Are you Eliyas?’ Yahiya said, ‘No.’ The priests said, ‘Are you the prophet that our (incl.) tribe Isra’il is waiting for/expecting?’ Yahiya answered, he said, ‘No.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And they said, ‘Are you the long ago inspired one, Elijah?’ (inspired one-prophet) And John said, ‘I am not also.’ And they said, ‘Perhaps you are that prophesied prophet of God?’ And John said, ‘I am not also.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “‘Who are you (sing.) then? Are you (sing.) Elias? they said. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Are you (sing.) perhaps the prophet who is coming?’ they inquired again. ‘No,’ he said.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “‘Well if it’s like that,’ they said, ‘then who are you? Are you not the Prophet Elias?’ ‘Expletive, no,’ said Juan. ‘Well what, are you not the one who is meant by that Prophet?’ ‘Expletive, no. I won’t make-false-claims for myself.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “Again they asked him, ‘But who are you then? Are you the prophet Elijah?’ John said, ‘I am not.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
