Exegesis:

kai pothen ‘how, then…?’ For this use of pothen ‘whence’ cf. 8.4. ‘In what way?’

By many editors and translators the second part of this verse is made the initial sentence of the following paragraph, rather than the closing one of this paragraph (cf. Nestle, Westcott & Hort, Lagrange, Taylor, Swete, Goodspeed, Moffatt).

ho polus ochlos ‘the great crowd,’ ‘the crowd of people’: on the basis of classical Greek usage Field defends and supports the King James Version and American Standard Version reading ‘the common people.’ Marcan usage, however (cf. 5.21, 24; 6.34; 9.14), favors the Revised Standard Version.

Translation:

Calls him Lord can be quite easily mistranslated and hence misinterpreted by the reader, if the referent of him is not clear. For example, in some translations the meaning has been ‘David calls God Lord,’ since ‘him’ is understood as referring to God. In such cases one may say ‘calls this person Lord,’ in which case the reference would be to ‘the offspring of David,’ who is also spoken of as ‘my Lord.’

A further ambiguity of reference may occur in he his son. In Tzeltal these problems are resolved as ‘the same David called him his Lord; how then is his Lord his son.’

The great throng is translatable in some languages as ‘the very great crowd’ or ‘the many, many people there.’ If one adopts the interpretation of ‘the common people’ (see above), the equivalent often is ‘the masses’ or ‘the poor people,’ or as in Tzeltal, ‘the people without offices.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Text:

Instead of ek tou ouranou ‘from heaven’ of all modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus has tou ouranou ‘of heaven.’

Exegesis:

hoi asteres (only here in Mark) ‘the stars.’

esontai … piptontes ‘shall be falling’: the verbal phrase is perhaps linear, denoting a succession of stars falling from heaven.

piptō (cf. 4.4) ‘fall.’

hai dunameis hai en tois ouranois ‘the powers which are in the heavens’: in accordance with Hebrew parallelism, these heavenly ‘powers’ may be simply the stars themselves, this second clause being synonymous with the first (as is probably the case in Isa. 34.4, whose language is reflected in this passage in Mark); or these ‘powers’ might be the evil spirits which, in Jewish thought, were supposed to rule the heavenly bodies. For the attributive phrase hai en tois ouranois ‘the ones in the heavens’ cf. a similar instance in 11.25.

saleuthēsontai (only here in Mark) ‘they shall be shaken’: i.e. they will be driven out of their normal course.

Translation:

It must be noted that the differences of exegesis (and exposition) of this passage (verses 24-25) may be quite pronounced, for though some persons believe that this description refers to extraordinary astronomical phenomena, others are certain that this description applies not to celestial bodies but to the collapse of earthly governments, which are often described in apocalyptic literature by these figures of speech. However, regardless of the ultimate exposition of the passage, the translation should preserve the wording as closely as possible, leaving this wider interpretation to commentaries.

Heaven is best translated as ‘sky,’ if the language in question distinguishes between words for ‘sky’ and ‘heaven’ (as the abode of God).

Powers in the heavens is translatable in some languages as the ‘authorities in the sky.’ One must avoid implying that God’s own authority is to be shaken by translating heavens as ‘the abode of God.’ However, ‘authorities’ (or ‘powers’) is not very meaningful even at best, since this type of expression is quite alien to the concepts of most people. In Navajo an alternative expression ‘that which holds things firm in the sky’ has been employed, but this is a phrase which would imply literal rearrangement of heavenly bodies.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Text:

Before trublion ‘dish’ Textus Receptus, Tischendorf, Soden, Vogels, Souter, Lagrange, and Merk omit hen ‘one’; it is included, in brackets (with some doubt as to its genuineness, therefore), by Westcott and Hort, Nestle, and Taylor; Kilpatrick includes it without brackets; Revised Standard Version also includes it, translating ‘same.’

Exegesis:

heis tōn dōdeka (cf. v. 10) ‘one of the Twelve.’

ho embaptomenos met’ emou ‘he who dips with me,’ ‘the one dipping with me’: what is said in v. 18 concerning the force of the definite article ho ‘the’ with the participle, and concerning the time involved in the designation, is applicable here as well.

embaptō (only here in Mark) ‘to dip in,’ ‘to plunge in’: here it is used with reference to the bread which was held in the hand and dipped in the bowl containing the designated sauce for the meal.

to hen trublion ‘the one bowl,’ i.e. ‘the same bowl.’

trublion (only here in Mark) ‘dish,’ ‘bowl’: placed in the center of the table, it contained the sauce into which the bread was dipped for eating.

Translation:

The twelve must be modified in two ways in some languages: (1) by the addition of a substantive, e.g. ‘disciples’ or ‘men,’ and (2) by a shift to a second person form, or identification, e.g. ‘one of you twelve disciples.’ Without the addition of ‘you,’ the clause may be interpreted as referring to another twelve persons rather than to those being addressed, since in certain languages it is possible to speak of oneself in the third person.

Dipping does not mean complete submersion of the bread, but only the dipping of it into a sauce.

One of the twelve must in some languages be ‘one of the eleven’ (Chol).

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Text:

At the end of the verse Textus Receptus, Soden, Vogels, Merk, and Kilpatrick add ap’ autōn ‘from them,’ which is omitted by the majority of modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

katalipōn (cf. 10.7) ‘leaving,’ ‘leaving behind.’

gumnos ‘naked’: here it is an adjective, modifying the subject of the verb.

ephugen (cf. v. 50) ‘fled,’ ‘ran away.’

Translation:

Left must not be understood in the sense of ‘laying the cloth down’ as some translations imply. In Navajo the rendering is accurate and idiomatic, ‘he ran out of the cloth red,’ in which ‘red’ is a term meaning ‘naked.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Exegesis:

palin ‘again’: the ordinary meaning ‘again’ seems out of place here since this is the first time, according to the narrative that the crowd shouted to Pilate. Black suggests ‘thereupon,’ while Lagrange refers to 2.13 as an example of palin used in a more general sense than ‘again’ with its implication of a repetition of an act done before. Arndt & Gingrich suggest that a previous outburst is implied in v. 11, or else (which seems more probable) that palin here carries the idea of ‘back’ – ‘they shouted back’ – as in 11.3 apostelein palin means ‘to send back’ (cf. Goodspeed).

ekraxan (cf. 3.11) ‘they shouted,’ ‘they cried out.’

staurōson (15.14, 15, 20, 24, 25, 27; 16.6) ‘you must crucify!’

Translation:

Cried out again may be translated as ‘yelled back at him’ or ‘shouted back.’

For a discussion of the form of the cross see 8.34. The verb crucify should in some way be related to execution by means of a cross. It is not enough merely to translate ‘kill him.’ However, the particular way in which Jesus was executed by being put on the cross is differently described in various languages, e.g. ‘fasten him to a spread-back-stick’ (Loma (Liberia)) and ‘nail him on a cross’ (Copainalá Zoque), and ‘nail on the cross wood’ (Mongolian). However, since Pilate would not himself nail Jesus to the cross, it is necessary in some languages to use a causative, e.g. ‘cause him to be nailed on a cross.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

Text:

Instead of ptōma ‘corpse’ of the modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus has soma ‘body.’

Exegesis:

gnous (cf. 6.38; 8.17) ‘finding (it) out,’ ‘learning (it).’ Revised Standard Version adds that ‘he was dead’ for clarity: there are no equivalent words in the Greek text.

edōrēsato (only here in Mark) ‘he bestowed,’ ‘he presented,’ ‘he gave.’

to ptōma (cf. 6.29) ‘the corpse,’ ‘the (dead) body.’

Translation:

Learned from the centurion that … may require adjustment to direct discourse, e.g. ‘when the centurion had told him, Jesus is dead.’

Granted must not be translated in such a way as to imply that Pilate literally handed over to Joseph the body of Jesus. A more meaningful rendering is often ‘told him that he could take’ or ‘allowed him to have.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .