world (Chinese)

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “world” in English is translated in Mandarin Chinese with shìjiè (世界). While shìjiè is now the commonly used term for “world” in Chinese, it was popularized as such by Chinese Bible translations. (Source: Mak 2017, p. 241ff.)

See also world.

complete verse (1 John 4:5)

Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 4:5:

  • Uma: “Those lying prophets, they are from this world. That’s why their teaching appears from this evil world, and people who don’t believe in the Lord hear and receive their teaching.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “These people who pretend to be prophets just/simply belong to the world hep, therefore their teaching is about all-sorts-of-things in this world. And they are heard/listened-to by the people that belong to this world, the ones who do not follow/obey God.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “As for those people who are inspired by lying spirits, they are enemies of God, and what they teach transgresses God. And because of that, people here on the earth who are also enemies of God will listen to them.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “As for those who teach lies, they are following the customs/behavior that is opposed to what God likes, and what they are teaching, it harmonizes with that behavior of theirs, so those who don’t believe like to listen to them.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “As for these who are-falsely-claiming-to-be-prophets, they are companions of those who aren’t believers in Jesu-Cristo, therefore as for their words, they are indeed harmonious with the ways of those who aren’t believers. Well, those who are like them who aren’t believers, those are the ones who listen to them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “The lying prophets walk with the people who live here on earth, therefore they speak of things here on earth. And the people who live here on earth approve of what these liars say.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “Those people who lie saying they speak God’s word, their heads are sitting (are concerned) only about what is happening on this earth. And therefore they speak words about what is happening on this earth, and other people who also are concerned only about what is happening on this earth heed them.”
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “And the deceiver prophets are servants of the world. And here in the world their word became visible (originated). So the world hears well what they say.”
  • Tzotzil: “Those who think they are saying God’s words, they are only of the world. Because they are only of the world therefore thus they talk. Their word is honored/respected by the people (unbelievers).” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)

Translation commentary on 1 John 4:5

They are of the world: the pronoun, referring again to the false prophets, is emphatic and contrasts with the pronoun in “you are of God” in verse 4a.

Therefore, or ‘because of this fact,’ namely, that the false prophets are of the world.

What they say is of the world, in the Greek literally “out of the world they-speak”: structurally this clause parallels “you out of God you-are” (verse 4a) and “they out of the world they-are” (verse 5a). Semantically it further develops the latter clause by stating one of the main characteristics of those who “are of the world.”

Revised Standard Version‘s slightly adjusted rendering has the advantage of preserving the parallelism. The same may be true of such renderings as ‘they speak as the world speaks,’ ‘what they say has the quality of the world,’ ‘their teaching belongs to the world.’ But sometimes receptor language idiom requires renderings that neglect the parallelism or bring it out less fully; for example, ‘they speak the language of the world,’ ‘they talk about worldly things,’ ‘they talk about nothing but the world.’

The world listens to them: the verb may require a personal subject; for example, ‘the people of this world,’ ‘the friends (or party) of this world.’

The verb listens has the sense ‘to give attention to’; it signifies intentional, attentive hearing and may imply that the agent agrees to, or obeys, what is said, as is the case here. The rendering to be used here and in verse 6 is often a form of ‘to hear’ (as it is in the Greek). In some languages the verb does not take the speaking person as direct object but his words; hence ‘to listen to what they say.’

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 .

SIL Translator's Notes on 1 John 4:5

4:5a

They: (Pronoun Reference) It needs to be clear in translation that this refers to the false prophets.

of the world: (Meaning) The false prophets are not children of God; they belong to the evil world of everything that is opposed to God.

4:5b

speak from the world’s perspective: (Meaning) John means that the teaching of these people is based on human wisdom, not on God’s revelation.

4:5c

and the world listens to them: (Logical Relationship) This is a second result of the fact that the false prophets are “from the world.” (The first result is in 4:5b.)

the world: (Multiple Senses) Here world has a slightly different sense from that which it has in the beginning of this sentence. Here it means the same as in 4:4d, “the people of the world who do not know God.”

© 2000 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible. BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.