complete verse (1 Corinthians 13:11)

Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 13:11:

  • Uma: “For example while I was still small, I talked like a small child, my heart was like a small child, my thinking was like a small child. But now I am big, the character of my childhood I have let-go-of. So also, abilities that we get from the Holy Spirit won’t last forever.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “It’s parable is, formerly when I was still really a child, my thinking and my speaking and my reasoning was like a child’s. But now because I am grown up, I have left/given up all my thoughts and behavior of my childhood.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Long ago when I was still a child, my thinking, my speaking, and my attitudes were not yet right, because these were still the activities of someone who is young. But now that I am old already, I’ve abandoned those former activities of a young person.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “For-example, during my childhood, the way I spoke, thought and planned was like a child, but now that I am a grown-man, I have left-behind the behavior of a child.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “This is like the growth of a person. For when we were still children, our words were still the words of children. Like that also was our mind/thinking and our ability-to-reason. But when we were now old/grown, our fitting-for-a-child nature/ways were now removed.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “When I was a child, I spoke the words which are spoken by children. Concerning my thoughts, they were like the thoughts of children. But now I am an adult and now have come to an end those words I spoke when I was a child.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Chichewa (interconfessional translation, 1999): “When I was a child, | I used to speak in a childish way, and I would understand things in a childish way. | But when I grew up, I stopped those childish things.” (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 161)

Translation commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:11

The word a child is the same as “babes” used in 3.1, but in the present verse it has its literal meaning, as the rest of the verse shows. Translators should use a normal word for child here that contrasts with man or “adult male.”

The Greek verbs translated thought and reasoned are quite close in meaning. The first refers to opinion, judgment, or attitude rather than emotion, and the second refers to logical processes.

Man translates the Greek word for a male human adult, but the contrast with child shows that adult status, not maleness, is in focus, so New Jerusalem Bible and New Revised Standard Version translate “adult,” and Revised English Bible has “when I grew up.”

Childish ways is more literally “things to do with being a child.” I gave up childish ways may be expressed as “I stopped behaving like a child” or “I left behind the affairs of small children.”

Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator’s Notes on 1 Corinthians 13:11

13:11a When I was a child, I talked like a child,

When I was a child, I talked as a child talks.
-or-
When I was a child, my words were like the words of a child.

13:11b I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.

I thought as a child thinks. I reasoned as a child reasons.
-or-
I thought in a childish way. I understood things the way a child does.

13:11c When I became a man, I set aside childish ways.

When I became an adult, I stopped behaving like a child.
-or-
When I grew big, I rejected the ways of a child.

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