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The Greek in Luke 3:7 that is translated in English as “(brood of) vipers” is translated in North Tanna as “sea-snakes” (“This is the black and white sea snake which is thought of as very evil here.”) (Source Ross McKerras)
See also adder / serpent / asp / viper.
The Greek in Mark 9:49 that is translated in English “(Everyone will be) salted with fire” is translated in Uripiv as “God will test all people with fire, like they test black stones [which are used in cooking]. If a stone is no good, it crumbles to ashes; if it’s good, the fire doesn’t affect it. So also they put salt with food to test its flavor, good or bad.” (Source: Ross McKerras)
In Elhomwe it is translated as “everyone will be cleansed by fire, like salt cleanses things.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
See also complete verse (Mark 9:49).
The Greek that is translated in English as “mustard seed” is translated in Muna as “wonolita seed.” René van den Berg explains: “The mustard plant rarely exceeds 50 cm in height. A wonolita is a big forest tree growing from a tiny seed.”
In the Bislama and Uripiv translations it is translated as “banyan.” “The banyan tree is one of the biggest in the islands, and it grows from a tiny seed. We (Uripiv) added a footnote to explain to more advanced readers what we had done: ‘Here Matthew compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed, but since mustard doesn’t grow here, we put banyan, so that Matthew’s meaning will be clear.’” (Source: Ross McKerras)
In Elhomwe it is translated as “tree seed.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In Gbaya is is translated with the ideophone kɛ̧́ɛ̧́ which “denotes a very tiny and barely visible object. (…) The Gbaya team applied it to faith instead of referring to a mustard seed which is unknown to Gbaya readers.” Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words expressing human sensation that are used as literary devices in many Central African languages. (Source: Philip Noss)
See also mustard.
The Greek that is translated as “wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather” or similar in English is translated in Mairasi a lot more specific as “if you see the mother of flocks of corpse-eating birds, Long-tailed Buzzard, Grey-faced Buzzard, White-breasted sea Eagle, or Brahminy Kite, then there is something dead and rotting, a dead person’s body, or a dead wilderness animal is over there.” (Aij ner nenem naa, tuao, iamba, sende fut namba in netomwan andani, orom umburu joet tan, nere neavo, sas warenar joetnyaa fovar atat.)
In Tangoa, a cultural substitute is used: “When you see the flying foxes flying to one location, you know that there is a ripe mango tree there” (Vara ko hite na karai la lo avu vano hin te jara, o pa levosahia vara te pahai mo mena atu.). A footnote explains in that translation that “when the last days come close, and people see all these things happening, they can be sure that it won’t be long before the Son of Man appears on the earth.” (Source: Ross McKerras)
In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) it is translated as “wherever there is carrion, the vultures will gather in the blink of an eye (blitzschnell).”
The Greek that is translated “if salt has lost its taste (or “saltiness”)?” or similar in English is translated in Amele as “if salt’s bitterness stings” (source: John Roberts), in Mairasi as “if that salt becomes watery” (source: Enggavoter 2004), and i8n the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) as “even if it would be possible for it to lose its taste.”
John Roberts comments on the nature of the salt in question in this article : “Jesus says salt can lose its salty taste and when it does it is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out. ‘You are the salt of the earth’ in Mat 5.13 is a metaphor. In this metaphor, ‘You’ (the disciples of Jesus) is the tenor and ‘salt of the earth’ is the vehicle of the metaphor. The metaphor applies the properties of salt to the disciples. When Jesus spoke this metaphor the salt (ἅλας) referred to was not pure sodium chloride. It was dug out of the ground mixed with other materials. The salt used in the area mostly came from mines around the Dead Sea and material extracted from that area demonstrates these same properties today. This ‘salt’ was used as seasoning or fertilizer, or as a preservative. However, when exposed to the elements, the sodium chloride in this ‘salt’ would leach out and leave only the sediment or impurities behind. What was left was good for nothing, except that it was used to place in paths, or walks, as we use gravel today. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_5:13 ). These are the properties of ‘salt’ that Jesus applies metaphorically to his disciples.”
Many languages in the world distinguish between plural and dual (and sometimes trial) pronouns (for instance, “you” specifically addressing many, two, or three people).
In Matthew 8:30 (“Now there was a herd of many swine feeding at a distance from them” in one English translation) it is left open whether “them” refers to the two demon-possessed men, to the men and Jesus or to the men, Jesus and the disciples?
The Bislama translators (in the Nyutesteman long Bislama of 1980) use a dual in Matthew 9:28, whereas the Uripiv uses a plural.
One of the translators explains: “I would argue, however, for a plural rather than a dual or trial, since we were told in Matt. 9:28 that the two men had ‘come to’ Jesus (who was probably accompanied by his disciples). ‘Come to’ renders the Greek word hypantao, otherwise used by Matthew only in 28:9. It is used also in the Markan parallel, in Mark 5:2; here we see from 5:7 that the man came right up to Jesus, so I interpret the them as referring at least to Jesus and the demoniacs.”
Source: Ross McKerras in Notes on Translation 2/1 1988, p. 53-56.
Many languages in the world distinguish between plural and dual (and sometimes trial) pronouns (for instance, “you” specifically addressing many, two, or three people).
In Matthew 9:32 (“As they were going out…” in one English translation) it is left open whether “them” refers to the two blind men or Jesus and the two blind men.
Both the Bislama translators (in the Nyutesteman long Bislama of 1980) and the Uripiv use a dual (indicating that this refers to just the two blind men).
One of the translators explains: “(1) Only Jesus is mentioned as going into the house (Matt. 9:28). The disciples no doubt entered with him, but it is a fair enough working assumption that if they were explicitly mentioned in one place (Matt. 9:32) they would have also been in the other. So we conclude that the ‘they’ in 9:32 is probably not referring to Jesus and the disciples. (2) A reasonably close parallel, as far as the Greek text is concerned, supporting this interpretation can be seen in Matt. 2:13. (First verb of new section repeats last verb of previous section, with same subject, in a genitive absolute construction, with de and followed by idou introducing new participants.)”
Source: Ross McKerras in Notes on Translation 2/1 1988, p. 53-56.
“It took us a while to find the right way to talk about ‘conscience’ in Uripiv in 1 Timothy 4:2. Here to say their ‘conscience are seared,’ we wrote: ‘They no longer feel anything sharp in their insides when they do bad.'” (Ross McKerras quoted on p. 118)
See also conscience.