love (by God)

Translator Lee Bramlett submitted this on the translation of the Greek word that is translated into English as “love” (referring to God’s love). This letter was then reposted by Wycliffe Bible Translators (see here ):

“Translator Lee Bramlett was confident that God had left His mark on the Hdi culture somewhere, but though he searched, he could not find it. Where was the footprint of God in the history or daily life of these Cameroonian people? What clue had He planted to let the Hdi know who He was and how He wanted to relate to them?

“Then one night in a dream, God prompted Lee to look again at the Hdi word for ‘love.’ Lee and his wife, Tammi, had learned that verbs in Hdi consistently end in one of three vowels. For almost every verb, they could find forms ending in i, a, and u. But when it came to the word for love, they could only find i and a. Why no u?

“Lee asked the Hdi translation committee, which included the most influential leaders in the community, ‘Could you ‘ɗvi’ your wife?’ ‘Yes,’ they said. That would mean that the wife had been loved but the love was gone.

“‘Could you ‘ɗva’ your wife?’ ‘Yes,’ they said. That kind of love depended on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and cared for her husband well.

“‘Could you ‘ɗvu’ your wife?’ Everyone laughed. ‘Of course not! If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water, never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would be compelled to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say ‘ɗvu.’ It just doesn’t exist.’

“Lee sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, ‘Could God ‘ɗvu’ people?’

“There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of these elderly men. Finally they responded. ‘Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, millennia after millennia, while all that time we rejected His great love. He is compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.’

“One simple vowel and the meaning was changed from ‘I love you based on what you do and who you are,’ to ‘I love you, based on Who I am. I love you because of Me and NOT because of you.’

“God had encoded the story of His unconditional love right into their language. For centuries, the little word was there — unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable. When the word was finally spoken, it called into question their entire belief system. If God was like that, did they need the spirits of the ancestors to intercede for them? Did they need sorcery to relate to the spirits? Many decided the answer was no, and the number of Christ-followers quickly grew from a few hundred to several thousand.

“The New Testament in Hdi is ready to be printed now, and 29,000 speakers will soon be able to feel the impact of passages like Ephesians 5:25: ‘Husbands, ‘ɗvu’ your wives, just as Christ ‘ɗvu’-d the church…'”

In Hawai’i Creole English the love that God has is often translated as love an aloha. Aloha has a variety of meanings, including “hello,” “goodbye,” “love,” “thank you,” etc.

The Philippine languages of Cebuano, Tagalog, and Pampanga use a word (gugma, pag-ibig, and lugud respectively) that is also used for a “noble, refined love of people for each other,” distinct from romantic love. (Source: G. Henry Waterman in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 24ff. )

In Mairasi, the term that is used for love by God, for God and for people is the same: “desire one’s face.” (source: Enggavoter 2004)

Joseph Hong (in The Bible Translator 1996, p. 233ff. ) explains the translation of this kind of love into Khmer: “Expressing the idea of God’s love has also caused some problems. Since the Khmer knows only about the Buddha as compassionate, the translation team was at a loss to find an adequate term to express God’s love for humankind which is so great that God even allowed himself to become a human being. A solution was found which says that God “relates himself” to (that is, “interacts with”) human beings, srolanh (ស្រលាញ់).”

See also love (Jesus for young, rich man), God is love, Honorary “are” construct denoting God (“love”), and this devotion on YouVersion .

soul

The Hebrew, Greek, Ge’ez, and Latin that is translated as “soul” in English is translated in Chol with a term that refers to the invisible aspects of human beings (source: Robert Bascom), in Yagaria with oune or “shadow, reflection” (source: Renck, p. 81), and in Elhomwe as “heart” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

The Mandarin Chinese línghún (靈魂 / 灵魂), literally “spirit-soul,” is often used for “soul” (along with xīn [心] or “heart”). This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32, see also Clara Ho-yan Chan in this article )

In Chichewa, moyo means both “soul” and “life.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also heart, soul, mind.

complete verse (2 Corinthians 12:15)

Following are a number of back-translations of 2 Corinthians 12:15:

  • Uma: “So, I am happy to use all I have to help you. I am ready to give myself to help you. If my love for you is that big, relatives, why is your love for me so small?” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Really I am happy to give to you all that I have and I submit/surrender including my body if only/just so I am able to help you. My love to you is increasing but your love to me is like becoming less.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “It would cause me great joy if I could give my possessions and my strength in order to help you. But even though you are precious here in my breath, it seems as if I am not precious in your breath.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Therefore great is my happiness to be out-of (lit. used-up-of) money and strength and whatever for you. Is your love for me being-lessened by-chance because of this extreme love of mine for you?” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “For as for me, what makes me happiest of all is to use my absolutely-everything and give even my body as a means-of-firmly-establishing your believing/obeying. Well what’s this, do you reward that big-size of my holding you dear with just a little bit of holding me dear?” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “It is like that for me now, I set my heat on working for you. I want to do you good in what I do and I am glad to give all that I own in order to help you. But it seems that as I more and more love you, then more and more your hearts turn back from loving me.” (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 2 Corinthians 12:15

Spend and be spent: Paul continues to use terms related to money (see “lay up” in verse 14). Two closely related verbs are used here, but the second is more intense in meaning and is passive in form; literally “be spent out,” that is, spent until nothing is left. Revised English Bible attempts to reflect the intensive nature of the second verb by adding “to the limit.” In many languages it will be impossible to retain the biblical image of Paul himself being “spent,” using the same term as used for spending money. The idea of “being spent” for someone may have to be translated “to give oneself” or “to commit oneself.” Contemporary English Version translates “I will gladly give all that I have and all that I am.”

The word souls here refers to the whole person. So it will be more natural in most languages to translate “for you” or “for your lives.”

The more … the less: many languages require clarification of the comparisons here. More or less than what or whom? While there is a comparison between the way Paul loves the Corinthians and the way they love him, the first term may be translated in an absolute sense. Many versions translate the more as “too much.” The word used here is, in fact, the same as in 10.8, where Revised Standard Version renders it “too much.” It is also translated “abundant” (2.4), “excessive” (2.7), and “all the more” (7.15). One version says “If I love you beyond limit like that, will you love me so little?”

Am I to be loved the less: the Greek has no explicit agent for the verb be loved. Good News Translation correctly makes explicit that the Corinthians are the agent.

Quoted with permission from Omanson, Roger L. and Ellingworth, Paul. A Handbook on Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator’s Notes on 2 Corinthians 12:15

12:15a And for the sake of your souls, I will most gladly spend my money

And I will very gladly give what I have
-or-
I will be very happy to use all I have ⌊to help you (plur.) follow God⌋.

12:15b and myself.

and give my life ⌊for you⌋.
-or-
I will also be very happy to use all that I am ⌊to help you follow God⌋.

12:15c If I love you more, will you love me less?

If my love for you is great, why is your love for me small?
-or-
I love you much, but it seems that you love me only a little.

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