The Book of 1 Meqabyan

1 Meqabyan (also known as 1 Ethiopian Maccabees and 1 Ethiopic Maccabees) is canonical scripture for the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. While “Meqabyan” is the Ge’ez equivalent of “Maccabees,” the content is completely different from 1 Maccabees. The only complete copies of 1 Meqabyan are available in Ge’ez (Classical Ethiopic), here used with permission by the Bible Society of Ethiopia.

The translation into English was provided by Haileyesus Woldemariam (UBS).

lake of fire

The Greek and Ge’ez that is typically translated int English as “lake of fire” is translated in Enga as “the place where big fire continually burns.”

Adam Boyd (on his blog) explains:

“The difficulty in Enga is that there is no traditional concept or imagery of a lake that is made out of fire. Lakes are made out of water, not fire. And there is not even really one word for lake. Instead Enga people literally say water depression. Now the word depression is not referring to an emotional state in which a person is feeling sad, but rather it means ‘a sunken place or hollow on a surface.’ In other words it refers to an area where there is an indentation in the ground. And when the word depression is preceded by the word water, it indicates that the indentation in the ground is filled with water.

“So, knowing that the Enga people say ‘water depression’ to talk about a lake, I of course suggested that we should translate lake of fire by saying ‘fire depression.’ In other words, a sunken place or indentation on the surface of the earth that is filled with fire instead of water. Well, as often happens when I think that I have made a brilliant suggestion, I was met with blank stares. In Papua New Guinean cultures, people will often not disagree with you directly, but they will show their disagreement by simply ignoring what you say. Not only that, but it can be difficult to articulate why something doesn’t sound quite right. The translators knew that fire depression didn’t sound right, but they might not have been able to articulate right away why that was the case. English speakers also have the same problem. For example, a typical English speaker would immediately be able to recognize that goed is not the past tense of go, but if they had to explain why, they would run into difficulty. (It is because the past tense went is actually from the verb wend as in wend your way through a crowd.) So just as English speakers know when something does not sound right but can’t always explain why, Enga speakers also encounter difficulties in explaining why something sounds wrong, especially since most Enga speakers have never had any formal training in their own language. Well as we continued pondering the best translation, I kept ignoring the nonverbal cues and pushing for fire depression as our answer. Finally, it dawned on our lead translator Maniosa why fire depression did not sound right. He said, ‘Do you know what a fire depression is? It is the little fire pit that we have in our homes that we cook over.’

“What I was hoping would mean lake of fire actually just meant fire pit. Big difference! So the terminology that I was suggesting would have people envisioning that the lake of fire, which is supposed to be an intimidating image of the ultimate end for untold numbers of those whose names are not written in the book of life, was nothing more than the little fire pit where people cook food in their homes. In fact, if more than one or two people were thrown into a lake of fire like that, they would probably smother the fire and put it out, which is not quite what Jesus had in mind when he talked about the ‘fire that is not quenched.’ So we had to abandon the idea of using the term fire depression and translate lake of fire as the place where big fire continually burns. The idea that this fire is burning in a depression or indentation in the ground had to be left out because that concept created the wrong image of a fire pit where one cooks food in the house. And fire pits are considered to be useful things that help people cook. They are not places of punishment.”

In Chol it is translated as “big fire.” (Source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation, March 1965, p. 2ff.)

demon

The Greek, Hebrew and Ge’ez that is typically translated/transliterated in English as “demon” is translated by other languages in the following ways:

  • Central Mazahua: “the evil spirit(s) of the devil” (source: Ellis Deibler in Notes on Translation July, 1967, p. 5ff.)
  • Kupsabiny: “bad spirit(s)” (source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Bariai: “bad bush-spirit(s)” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
  • Hausa: “unclean spirit” (see note below) (source: Hausa Common Language Back Translation)
  • Mandarin Chinese: “dirty spirit” (污灵 / wūlíng) (Protestant); “evil spirit/demon” (邪鬼 / xiéguǐ) (Catholic) (source: Zetzsche)
  • German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989): “false (or: perverted) spirit (Abergeist).
  • Adioukrou: abŋ ŋuŋ, originally “evil spirit (‘the spiritual/invisible part of a person that leaves the body at death, not an independent spirit being’).” “Exactly what abŋ ŋuŋ evokes for Adioukrou is the question. One thing Adioukrou know is that when a person’s abŋ leaves his or her body after death, it can enter someone else and speak through them to reveal the cause of death, a practice forbidden by the church. It is clear to all that abŋ eŋuŋ in Scripture is not speaking of this, however, because contexts that involve evil spirits in Scripture do not involve the Adioukrou post-mortem interrogation of a corpse. (…) Although the expression abŋ ŋuŋ is made up of Adioukrou words, it does not refer to a category in the Adioukrou worldview.” (Source: Hill 2006)
  • Sissala: kaŋtɔŋ, which traditionally referred to “either a spirit of natural phenomena such as trees, rivers, stones, etc., or the spirit of a deceased person that has not been taken into the realm of the dead. Kaŋtɔŋ can be good or evil. Evil kaŋtɔŋ can bring much harm to people and are feared accordingly. A kaŋtɔŋ can also dwell in a person living on this earth. A person possessed by kaŋtɔŋ does not behave normally.” (Source: Regina Blass in Holzhausen 1991, p. 48f.)
  • Umiray Dumaget Agta: hayup or “creature, animal, general term for any non-human creature, whether natural or supernatural.” Thomas Headland (in: Notes on Translation, September 1971, p. 17ff.) explains some more: “There are several types of supernatural creatures, or spirit beings which are designated by the generic term hayup. Just as we have several terms in English for various spirit beings (elves, fairies, goblins, demons, imps, pixies) so have the Dumagats. And just as you will find vast disagreement and vagueness among English informants as to the differences between pixies and imps, etc., so you will find that no two Dumagats will agree as to the form and function of their different spirit beings.” This term can also be used in a verb form: hayupen: “creatured” or “to be killed, made sick, or crazy by a spirit.”
  • Yala: yapri̍ija ɔdwɔ̄bi̍ or “bad Yaprija.” Yaprijas are traditional spirits that have a range presumed activities including giving or withholding gifts, giving and protecting children, causing death and disease and rewarding good behavior. (Source: Eugene Bunkowske in Notes on Translation 78/1980, p. 36ff.)
  • Lamnso’: aànyùyi jívirì: “lesser gods who disturb, bother, pester, or confuse a person.” (Source: Fanwong 2013, p. 93)
  • Paasaal: gyɩŋbɔmɔ, “beings that are in the wild and can only be seen when they choose to reveal themselves to certain people. They can ‘capture’ humans and keep them in hiding while they train the person in herbalism and divination. After the training period, which can range from a week to many years, the ‘captured’ individual is released to go back into society as a healer and a diviner. The gyɩŋbɔmɔ can also be evil, striking humans with mental diseases and causing individuals to get lost in the wild. The Pasaale worldview about demons is like that of others of the language groups in the area, including the Northern Dagara [who use kɔ̃tɔmɛ with a similar meaning].” (Source: Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)

In the still widely-used 1908 Tswana (also: Setswana) translation (by Robert Moffat, revised by Alfred Wookey), the term badino or “ancestor spirit” is used for “demon,” even though in the traditional understanding there is nothing inherently negative associated with that term. Musa Dube (in: Journal of Society of New Testament 73, 1999, p. 33ff. ) describes this as an example of “engaging in the colonization of the minds of natives and for advancing European imperial spaces. The death and burial of Setswana culture here was primarily championed through the colonization of their language such that it no longer served the interests of the original speakers. Instead the written form of language had equated their cultural beliefs with evil spirits, demons and wizardry. This colonization of Setswana was in itself the planting of a colonial cultural bomb, meant to clear the ground for the implantation of a worldwide Christian commonwealth and European consciousness. It was a minefield that marked Setswana cultural spaces as dangerous death zones, to be avoided by every intelligent Motswana reader or hearer of the translated text.”

In Kachin, the term Nat (or nat) us used for “demon” (as well as “devil” and “unclean/evil spirit“). Like in Tswana, the meaning of Nat is not inherently negative but can be positive in the traditional Nat worship as well. Naw Din Dumdaw (in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 94ff.) argues that “the demonization of Nat created a social conflict between Kachin Christians and Kachin non-Christians. Kachin converts began to perceive their fellow Kachins who were still worshipping Nats as demonic and they wanted to distance themselves from them. Likewise, the Nat-worshiping Kachin community perceived the Kachin converts as betrayers and enemies of their own cultural heritage. (…) The demonization of the word Nat was not only the demonization of the pre-Christian religion but also the demonization of the cultural heritage of the Kachin people. When the word Nat is perceived as demonic, it creates an existential dilemma for Kachin Christians. It distances them from their cultural traditions.”

Note that often the words for “demon” and “unclean spirit / evil spirit” are being used interchangeably.

See also devil and formal pronoun: demons or Satan addressing Jesus.