The Greek that is translated as “saint” in English is rendered into Highland Puebla Nahuatl as “one with a clean hearts,” into Northwestern Dinka as “one with a white hearts,” and into Western Kanjobal as “person of prayer.” (Source: Nida 1952, p. 146)
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 6:1:
Uma: “How is it that there are some of you who dare to bring-charges-against your fellow Kristen people to judges [lit., sitters] who don’t believe in the Lord Yesus? Why don’t you take your cases up before followers of the Lord Yesus?” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Now, this is about your cases/problems. Why is it that if you and your fellow trusters in Isa Almasi oppose each other, you go to people who don’t trust in Isa Almasi to be judged? Why don’t you take it to the people belonging to God in order for them to judge you?” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And when one of you has an accusation against his fellow believer, why do you always have the case settled by chiefs or judges who are not believers? It’s necessary that the one who settles the case for you, is our (incl.) fellow believer.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “If you have a misunderstanding (lit. area-where-you don’t -understand-one-another), why is it that you have no shame to file-charges-against your fellow believer before a judge who doesn’t believe? It is the people of God who should adjudicate (denotes out-of-court settlement) the case.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “There is another thing that I will say to you. What do you think, supposing there is something that one of the believers wants to put right that he can’t condone in his sibling in believing. Is it good if he presents-it -for-mediation to people who don’t acknowledge God? What will they know concerning justice/righteousness which is good in his sight? It’s necessary that you only present-it -for-mediation to your fellow believers.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “And now, if there is a believer who must accuse his fellow believers, he must not go to the judge who is not a believer. He can go to a fellow believer, telling him to work out a solution to the problem.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.
In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.
In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:
referring to “God,” especially in Old Testament quotations,
meaning “master” or “owner,” especially in parables, etc.,
as a form of address (see for instance John 4:11: “Sir, you have no bucket”),
or, most often, referring to Jesus
In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.
Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”
When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).
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Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):
Iyansi: Mwol. Mwol is traditionally used for the “chief of a group of communities and villages” with legal, temporal, and spiritual authority (versus the “mfum [the term used in other Bantu languages] which is used for the chief of one community of people in one village”). Mwol is also used for twins who are “treated as special children, highly honored, and taken care of like kings and queens.” (Source: Kividi Kikama in Greed / Kruger, p. 396ff.)
Binumarien: Karaambaia: “fight-leader” (Source: Oates 1995, p. 255)
Warlpiri: Warlaljamarri (owner or possessor of something — for more information tap or click here)
We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.
New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.
Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )
Mairasi: Onggoao Nem (“Throated One” — “Leader,” “Elder”) or Enggavot Nan (“Above-One”) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Obolo: Okaan̄-ene (“Owner of person(s)”) (source: Enene Enene)
Lotha Naga: Opvui (“owner of house / field / cattle”) — since both “Lord” and YHWH are translated as Opvui there is an understanding that “Opvui Jesus is the same as the Opvui of the Old Testament”
Seediq: Tholang, loan word from Min Nan Chinese (the majority language in Taiwan) thâu-lâng (頭儂): “Master” (source: Covell 1998, p. 248)
Thai: phra’ phu pen cao (พระผู้เป็นเจ้า) (divine person who is lord) or ong(kh) cao nay (องค์เจ้านาย) (<divine classifier>-lord-boss) (source: Stephen Pattemore)
Arabic often uses different terms for adonai or kurios referring to God (al-rabb الرب) and kurios referring to Jesus (al-sayyid الـسـيـد). Al-rabb is also the term traditionally used in Arabic Christian-idiom translations for YHWH, and al-sayyid is an honorary term, similar to English “lord” or “sir” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).
Tamil also uses different terms for adonai/kurios when referring to God and kurios when referring to Jesus. The former is Karttar கர்த்தர், a Sanskrit-derived term with the original meaning of “creator,” and the latter in Āṇṭavar ஆண்டவர், a Tamil term originally meaning “govern” or “reign” (source: Natarajan Subramani).
Burunge: Looimoo: “owner who owns everything” (in the Burunge Bible translation, this term is only used as a reference to Jesus and was originally used to refer to the traditional highest deity — source: Michael Endl in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 48)
Aguacateco: Ajcaw ske’j: “the one to whom we belong and who is above us” (source: Rita Peterson in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 49)
Konkomba: Tidindaan: “He who is the owner of the land and reigns over the people” (source: Lidorio 2007, p. 66)
Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient GreekSeptuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”
The Greek for grievance (Good News Bible‘s “dispute”) is more general than in English. In some contexts it may mean a business transaction. Here, however, the context requires the meaning “legal dispute” or “lawsuit.”
Against a brother is literally “against another,” but the context indicates that “another Christian” (Good News Bible) is the meaning here. One may also translate this as “another member of the church.”
In Greek the word dare is emphatic because it appears at the beginning of the section. Revised Standard Version and Good News Bible put it later in the verse. Good News Bible‘s “how dare you…?” is emphatic without occurring at the beginning of the sentence.
The phrase does he dare may be expressed as “what right has he,” or one may change the rhetorical question to a statement and say “he has no right to.”
The main difficulty in this verse is the translation of the words for unrighteous (Good News Bible‘s “heathen”) and saints (Good News Bible‘s “God’s people”), which Paul is obviously contrasting. Saints refers to the church, not to Israelites as in the Old Testament. It is possible to distinguish at least three elements of meaning in this word. First is the ethnic aspect, referring to Christians as “God’s people” as if they were a distinct race. Second is the ethical meaning, referring to Christians as belonging to God and thus holy. Third is the theological aspect, stressing that Christians are “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified.” Good News Bible rightly suggests that Paul’s thought moves from the ethnic aspect in verses 1 and 6 to the ethical aspect in verses 7-10 and the theological aspect in verse 11.
The word unrighteous (Greek adikōn) probably refers to pagans, people who do not worship the true God. In this context unrighteous does not mean “unjust” but “not justified.” This and related words recur several times in this section: “suffer wrong” (verse 7, Greek adikeisthe), “wrong” (verse 8, Greek adikeite), and “justified” (verse 11, Greek edikaiōthēte) are all related. Paul uses them to bind his teaching together in this passage; but the effect will usually be difficult or impossible to reproduce in translation. In any case, what matters is that the meaning is coherent.
Good News Bible adds the phrase “settle the matter” to bring out a meaning that is implicit in the text. One may also express this phrase as “judge the case.”
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 .
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 show 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).