The concept that is expressed as “mind” in English is translated as “head-heart” in Yatzachi Zapotec. This concept is applied to terms that are translated in English as “fellowship” (“head-hearts are one”), the “inner-self” (“have no evil” is “have no evil in our head-hearts”), “eye” (in the sense of “understanding”), “heart” and “soul.”
Source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22.
Nida (1947, p. 230) says this about the translation of the concept of “truth”: “The words for ‘truth’ and ‘true’ are not always the most readily discovered in aboriginal languages. In some instances the only expression which corresponds to ‘true’ is something like ‘it happened.’ A falsehood is something that ‘did not happen.’ In a good many languages the meaning of ‘truth’ is expressed by the words signifying ‘straight’ and ‘direct.’ Untruth is accordingly ‘crookedness.’ An abstract noun such as English “truth” is quite difficult to find in some instances. Only an expression such as ‘true statement’ or ‘true word’ will be found to correspond to English ‘truth.’”
The Greek, Latin, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is usually translated in English as “truth” is translated in Luchazi with vusunga: “the quality of being straight” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. ), in Obolo as atikọ or “good/correct talk” (source: Enene Enene), and in Ekari as maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (esp. in John 14:6 and 17; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) tells of the translation into Kui which usually is “true-thing.” In some instances however, such as in the second part of John 17:17 (“your word is truth” in English), the use of “true-thing” indicated that there might be other occasions when it’s not true, so here the translation was a a form of “pure, holy.”
The translation committee of the Malay “Good News Bible” (Alkitab Berita Baik, see here ) wrestled with the translation of “truth” in the Gospel of John:
“Our Malay Committee also concluded that ‘truth’ as used in the Gospel of John was used either of God himself, or of God’s revelation of himself, or in an extended sense as a reference to those who had responded to God’s self-disclosure. In John 8:32 the New Malay translation reads ‘You will know the truth about God, and the truth about God will make you free.’ In John 8:44 this meaning is brought out by translating, ‘He has never been on the side of God, because there is no truth in him.’ Accordingly Jesus ‘tells the truth about God’ in 8:45, 46 (see also 16:7 and 8:37a). Then, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6) becomes ‘I am the one who leads men to God, the one who reveals who and what God is, and the one who gives men life.” At 3:21 the translation reads ” … whoever obeys the truth, that is God himself, comes to the light …’; 16:13a appears as ‘he will lead you into the full truth about God’; and in 18:37 Jesus affirms ‘I came into the world to reveal the truth about God, and whoever obeys God listens to me.’ On this basis also 1:14 was translated ‘we saw his glory, the glory which he had as the Father’s only Son. Through him God has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace)’; and 1:17 appears as ‘God gave the law through Moses; but through Jesus Christ he has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace).'” (Source: Barclay Newman in The Bible Translator 1974, p. 432ff. )
The German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) has followed a somewhat similar path to the Malay committee 50 years earlier in the gospel of John. In John 1 it translates “truth as “God’s nature,” in John 3 as “God’s will,” in John 8 as “God’s reality,” in John 14 as “encountering God,” and in John 16 as “God’s truth.”
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the addressee).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is typically translated as “sin” in English has a wide variety of translations.
The Greek ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō) carries the original verbatim meaning of “miss the mark” and likewise, many translations contain the “connotation of moral responsibility.”
Loma: “leaving the road” (which “implies a definite standard, the transgression of which is sin”)
Navajo (Dinė): “that which is off to the side” (source for this and above: Bratcher / Nida)
Toraja-Sa’dan: kasalan, originally meaning “transgression of a religious or moral rule” and in the context of the Bible “transgression of God’s commandments” (source: H. van der Veen in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 21ff. )
Bariai: “bad behavior” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
Sandawe: “miss the mark” (like the original meaning of the Greek term) (source for this and above: Ursula Wiesemann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 36ff., 43)
Nias: horö, originally a term primarily used for sexual sin. (Source: Hummel / Telaumbanua 2007, p. 256)
In Shipibo-Conibo the term is hocha. Nida (1952, p. 149) tells the story of its choosing: “In some instances a native expression for sin includes many connotations, and its full meaning must be completely understood before one ever attempts to use it. This was true, for example, of the term hocha first proposed by Shipibo-Conibo natives as an equivalent for ‘sin.’ The term seemed quite all right until one day the translator heard a girl say after having broken a little pottery jar that she was guilty of ‘hocha.’ Breaking such a little jar scarcely seemed to be sin. However, the Shipibos insisted that hocha was really sin, and they explained more fully the meaning of the word. It could be used of breaking a jar, but only if the jar belonged to someone else. Hocha was nothing more nor less than destroying the possessions of another, but the meaning did not stop with purely material possessions. In their belief God owns the world and all that is in it. Anyone who destroys the work and plan of God is guilty of hocha. Hence the murderer is of all men most guilty of hocha, for he has destroyed God’s most important possession in the world, namely, man. Any destructive and malevolent spirit is hocha, for it is antagonistic and harmful to God’s creation. Rather than being a feeble word for some accidental event, this word for sin turned out to be exceedingly rich in meaning and laid a foundation for the full presentation of the redemptive act of God.”
Martin Ehrensvärd, one of the translators for the DanishBibelen 2020, comments on the translation of this term: “We would explain terms, such that e.g. sin often became ‘doing what God does not want’ or ‘breaking God’s law’, ‘letting God down’, ‘disrespecting God’, ‘doing evil’, ‘acting stupidly’, ‘becoming guilty’. Now why couldn’t we just use the word sin? Well, sin in contemporary Danish, outside of the church, is mostly used about things such as delicious but unhealthy foods. Exquisite cakes and chocolates are what a sin is today.” (Source: Ehrensvärd in HIPHIL Novum 8/2023, p. 81ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 1:8:
Uma: “If we say that we have no sin(s), we are deceiving ourselves, and we do not take-to-heart the true teaching.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “If we (dual) say that we have no sin whatsoever/there is no sin of ours (dual), we (dual) deceive ourselves and there is no truth in our (dual) livers.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If we say that we don’t have any sin, we are trying to get our breath to believe a lie, and we are not obeying the true doctrine.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves (lit. our own bodies; so also any reflexive expressions from now on) and we don’t agree-to (lit. say-yes-to) the truth of the matter (lit. of it).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Well, if we are saying also that as for us, we have no sin, we are only lying to ourselves, and the truth is far from us.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “If we say that we do not have our sins, we are deceiving ourselves then, it is not true what we say.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Yatzachi Zapotec: “If we say we have no evil in our head-hearts, we deceive ourselves and we do not speak true words.”
Eastern Highland Otomi: “If we try to say that there is none in us sin, but then we are deceiving ourselves, and we don’t know what truth is.”
Tzotzil: “If we say, ‘There is not my sin,’ we deceive ourselves for sure. It is in vain that thus we say.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
We have no sin: constructions of “to have” with nouns like “fellowship” (1.3, 6-7), “sin” (1.8), “life” (3.15; 5.12-13), “love” (4.16), “joy” (3 John 4), “confidence” (2.28; 3.21; 4.17; 5.14) often occur in the Johannine writings. The verb then refers to inner possession and shows a person to be in a certain condition, or to have a certain emotion, which influences him continually. Thus “to have sin” means that one has the source and principle of sin in oneself and is continually dominated by it. The expression does not refer here to sinful deeds (as it did in verse 7) but to a sinful attitude that is the source of sinful deeds, and implies personal guilt. Some ways to render the clause are “we claim to be sinless” (New English Bible), ‘we have no evil in our head-hearts,’ ‘we are persons who never sin.’
We deceive ourselves. The Greek verb occurs often in the passive, meaning “to be led astray.” Here the reflexive form is used in order to show that the persons concerned are held responsible; hence, for example, ‘we are leading ourselves astray,’ ‘we take the wrong road,’ or better, to bring out the metaphorical use, ‘we are leading our hearts astray,’ ‘our thoughts follow the wrong road,’ ‘we are turning our heads,’ ‘we are fooling ourselves (literally causing ourselves to be stupid).’
The truth is not in us. The present tense has durative force. The clause means to say that the truth is not in us and this will remain so. Thus the situation of the false teachers, who claim to know God, is shown to be quite the contrary of what they claim.
† Truth is used here (and often elsewhere in the Johannine writings) with another shade of meaning than in verse 6, namely, as a reference to God’s own truthfulness. God is truthful in that his acting and speaking cover each other completely. Thus God’s truth constitutes his real being and revealing activity, giving life and freedom to man. Therefore he keeps faith with his worshippers, doing what he has promised; compare, for example, Exo 34.6. The term is used in this sense also in 2.4, 21b; 3.19; 4.6; 2 John 1b, 2; 3 John 8; compare also 1 John 5.7.
† In the writings of John the phrase “to be in” serves to express a very close and intimate relationship of Christ with God or God with Christ (John 17.21), of men with God or God with men (1 John 2.5; 5.20; and 4.4), of an aspect of God’s being (as represented by Christ) with men (here), or of the devil with the world (4.4). Compare also “to abide in” (see comments on 2.6), which emphasizes the continuity of the relationship. Some renderings used are ‘to live in,’ ‘to be one with,’ ‘to belong to,’ ‘to be before,’ ‘to be in the presence of,’ ‘to be in the innermost of’ (that is, to agree with, to act according to the will of, TBT, 20.79-80, 1969).
In the present case it is often preferable to change the structure of the clause, taking “we” as the subject. This leads to such renderings as ‘we are not familiar with the truth (of God),’ ‘we do not have the truth (of God) in our heart,’ ‘we have not the true One/God in our heart.’
Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The First Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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