9Then a great clamor arose, and certain scribes of the Pharisees’ group stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong with this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?”
The Greek that is usually translated as “scribe” in English “were more than mere writers of the law. They were the trained interpreters of the law and expounders of tradition.”
Tboli: “one who taught the law God before caused Moses to write” (or “one who taught the law of Moses”) (source for this and 5 above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Noongar: Mammarapa-Warrinyang or “law man” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Mairasi: “one who writes and explains Great Above One’s (=God’s) prohibitions” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Chichewa: “teacher of Laws” (source: Ernst Wendland)
Lalana Chinantec: “one who is a teacher of the law which God gave to Moses back then”
Tepeuxila Cuicatec: “one who know well the law” (Source for this and four above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
Huixtán Tzotzil: “one who mistakenly thought he was teaching God’s commandments”(Huixtán Tzotzil frequently uses the verb -cuy to express “to mistakenly think something” from the point of view of the speaker; source: Marion M. Cowan in Notes on Translation 20/1966, pp. 6ff.)
Germandas Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022): “theologian” and in the 1964 translation by Helmut Riethmüller: “theologian of scriptures” (Schrifttheologe)
English translation by Scot McKnight (in The Second Testament, publ. 2023): Covenant Code scholar
In British Sign Language it is translated with a sign that combines the signs for “expert” and “law.” (Source: Anna Smith)
“Scribe” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL , used with permission)
Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article ): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) is used as in mi-tsukai (御使い) or “messenger (of God).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 23:9:
Uma: “Finally, their argument became festive/noisy. Several teachers of religion who were on the side of the Parisi people stood up and argued/answered, they said: ‘This person is not guilty / has no wrong. Perhaps there really was an angel or a ghost who spoke to him.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “So-then their shouting became strong and some teachers of the religious law from among the Pariseo stood and really argued. They said, ‘We (excl.) have not found any evil in this man. Perhaps there really was a spirit/soul or an angel that spoke to him.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Therefore their shouting at each other got louder and louder, and then the Pharisees who were teachers of the law stood up and said, ‘There is nothing bad that we know of that this man has done. Perhaps it’s true that there was a spirit or a messenger of God that has spoken to him!'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Therefore they excessively made-a-racket. Some of the Pharisees who were teachers of the law, they stood-up to insist-on their opinions (lit. thoughts), and they said saying, ‘We (excl.) know of absolutely no sin/crime of this-one. If an angel or other unseen-one has spoken-to him (appreciation/empathy particle), is it indeed-the-case that (RQ implying of course not) that is bad?'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “When it was now like that, their words became really loud for they were fighting/quarreling now. The explainers of law who were members of the Pariseo stood up. They said, ‘There is indeed nothing we can find to hold against this person. If supposing he truly was spoken to by an angel or someone else from heaven, of course it’s not a sin.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The Greek that is a transliteration of the Hebrew Pərūšīm and is typically transliterated into English as “Pharisee” is transliterated in Mandarin Chinese as Fǎlìsài (法利賽 / 法利赛) (Protestant) or Fǎlìsāi (法利塞) (Catholic). In Chinese, transliterations can typically be done with a great number of different and identical-sounding characters. Often the meaning of the characters are not relevant, unless they are chosen carefully as in these cases. The Protestant Fǎlìsài can mean something like “Competition for the profit of the law” and the Catholic Fǎlìsāi “Stuffed by/with the profit of the law.” (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 51)
In Finnish Sign Language it is translated with the sign signifying “prayer shawl”. (Source: Tarja Sandholm)
Scot McKnight (in The Second Testament, publ. 2023) translates it into English as Observant. He explains (p. 302): “Pharisee has become a public, universal pejorative term for a hypocrite. Pharisees were observant of the interpretation of the Covenant Code called the ‘tradition of the elders.’ They conformed their behaviors to the interpretation. Among the various groups of Jews at the time of Jesus, they were perhaps closest to Jesus in their overall concern to make a radical commitment to the will of God (as they understood it).”
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”).
According to Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan (in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.) translators select the exclusive form (including some Pharisaic scribes and excluding the rest of the Council).
The Tok Pisin translations, however, follows the recommendation of SIL International Translation Department (1999) and uses the inclusive pronoun for this (“referring to the speakers and their fellow Judeans in exile”).
The Good News Translation connects the shouting mentioned in this verse with the quarrel mentioned in verse 7: the shouting became louder (so Jerusalem Bible). It is also possible to do as the New English Bible has done: “so a great uproar broke out.” One can, of course, translate in such a way as to specify the participants who were doing the shouting—for example, “the Sadducees and Pharisees started shouting louder and louder.”
Teachers of the Law is a term which is rendered “scribes” by most translators (New English Bible “doctors of the law”). These people were, in fact, much more than the English word “scribe” would indicate; they were recognized teachers of the Jewish Law, and usually, though not always, they belonged to the Pharisaic party.
Protested strongly (see Phillips “protested violently”) is a much stronger word than “contended” (Revised Standard Version) or “insisted” (An American Translation*) might suggest.
We cannot find a thing wrong with this man may be rendered as “we have not discovered anything which will cause this man to be condemned” or “we have not found anything wrong that he has done.”
Perhaps a spirit or an angel really did speak to him implies that the Pharisees believed that Paul was spoken to by an angel or a spirit.
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on The Acts of the Apostles. (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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