preach

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The Greek terms that are translated into English as “preach” or “proclaim” are regularly rendered into Aari as “speaking the word of salvation.” (Source: Loren Bliese)

Other languages (back-) translate it in the following manner:

  • Mandarin Chinese: chuándào/傳道 or “hand down the Way [or: the Logos]”)
  • Kekchí: “declare the word”
  • Kpelle: “speak God’s word”
  • Tzeltal: “he explains, they hear” (“the goal of all preachers”)
  • Copainalá Zoque: “a preacher is ‘one who speaks-scatters'” (a figure based on the scattering of seed in the process of sowing) (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • Shilluk: “declare the word of of God” (source: Nida 1964, p. 237)

In Luang it is translated with different shades of meaning:

  • For Acts 9:20, 10:42: nakotnohora: “talk about” (“The generic term for preaching.”)
  • For Acts 8:4, 8:5, 8:25: rodkiota-ralde’etnohora — “bring words, give news about.” (“This term is used when the preacher is moving from place to place to preach.”)

Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.

save

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The Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as a form of “save” in English is translated in Shipibo-Conibo with a phrase that means literally “make to live,” which combines the meaning of “to rescue” and “to deliver from danger,” but also the concept of “to heal” or “restore to health.”

Other translations include:

  • San Blas Kuna: “help the heart”
  • Laka: “take by the hand” in the meaning of “rescue” or “deliver”
  • Huautla Mazatec: “lift out on behalf of”
  • Anuak: “have life because of”
  • Central Mazahua: “be healed in the heart”
  • Baoulé: “save one’s head”
  • Guerrero Amuzgo: “come out well”
  • Northwestern Dinka: “be helped as to his breath” (or “life”) (source for all above: Bratcher / Nida),
  • Matumbi: “rescue (from danger)” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
  • Noongar: barrang-ngandabat or “hold life” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • South Bolivian Quechua: “make to escape”
  • Highland Puebla Nahuatl: “cause people to come out with the aid of the hand” (source for this and one above: Nida 1947, p. 222)
  • Bariai: “retrieve one back” (source: Bariai Back Translation)

See also salvation and save (Japanese honorifics).

complete verse (1 Corinthians 15:2)

Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 15:2:

  • Uma: “You have been lifted from the punishment of your sins, as long as you hold strongly to the Good News that I delivered to you–lest [lit., don’t-don’t, like Indonesian jangan-jangan] your faith had no purpose.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Because of this good news also you have life without end if you really steadfastly follow the message that I proclaimed to you. Because if you don’t follow, there is no use in your having believed.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “By means of this Good News which I preached to you, you were freed from God’s punishment. You will be free from God’s punishment if you don’t abandon it. Because if you abandon it, your faith, evidently, is not real.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “And if you persist in believing this good news, you will be saved unless what your faith was-based-on was not correct/right.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Your believing/obeying this Good News is what you are saved by from God’s punishment upon your sins, provided you hold fast to this word of God that I taught you, unless your believing/obeying is not genuine (lit. just from your beak).” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “If you do not separate from this word, it will save your souls if not just on the outside you believe.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (Japanese)

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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.

One way Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

Translation commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:2

Comparison with Revised Standard Version shows how Good News Bible has changed the order of the clauses. The structure of the sentence in Greek is difficult and may well require some restructuring in translation. Other common language translations, however, do not do this in the same way as Good News Bible. For example, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “You will also be saved by it, if you hold it fast as I handed it over to you. Otherwise you would have come to faith in vain!”

The first clause, by which you are saved, follows on naturally from verse 1. Saved in this context probably means “being saved,” hence “you will be saved.” It is quite common in New Testament Greek for the present tense to refer by anticipation to future events. Revised English Bible has “which is now bringing you salvation.”

The main difficulties arise in the rest of the verse. New English Bible takes the following clause to be a direct question, “Do you still hold fast the Gospel as I preached it to you?” and then continues, “If not, your conversion was in vain.” However, most translations and editions agree with the UBS Greek text in taking the second clause as an implied question, as for example in Barclay “if you keep a tight grip of it, in the form in which I preached it to you.” In vain in the context of this chapter means that the hoped-for consequences of faith will never happen, making faith useless.

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 .