21They replied, “We have received no letters from Judea about you, and none of the brothers coming here has reported or spoken anything evil about you.
Following are a number of back-translations of Acts 28:21:
Uma: “The Yahudi elders said to Paulus: ‘We have not received a letter from Yudea talking about you (sing.). And there has also been no-one from there bringing news or speaking of your (sing.) evil.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “They said to Paul, ‘We (excl.) have never received a letter from the land Yahudiya concerning you. There are also no Yahudi who have been there bringing information here or speaking evil about you.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And they said to Paul, ‘There is no letter that we’ve received which has come from the province of Judea telling us about you, and there are none of our companions who have arrived from Judea that have any news about anything that you’ve done that’s bad.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “After that they said, ‘We (excl.) have received no letter from Judea about you (sing.). Even also our companions who have come-from there, there is nothing they have reported-negatively or related that is evil that you (sing.) have done.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Those people said, ‘All this time, there has been no letter which came here to us from Judea telling concerning you. And those of our (incl.) fellow-countrymen who have been coming here from there, there was nothing they related or were discussing about evil which you had done.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The name that is transliterated as “Judah” or “Judea” in English (referring to the son of Jacob, the tribe, and the territory) is translated in Spanish Sign Language as “lion” (referring to Genesis 49:9 and Revelation 5:5). This sign for lion is reserved for regions and kingdoms. (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. and Steve Parkhurst)
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 exclusive form (only including the Jewish leaders in Rome).
Source: SIL International Translation Department (1999).
They said to him may be made more specific in some languages as “the local Jewish leaders said to Paul” or “the local Jewish leaders responded.”
In this context our brothers is, of course, “fellow Jews.”
Of the two expressions come … with any news and or to say anything, the first refers to an official and the second to a private communication. The Revised Standard Version translates these as “reported or spoken,” and the Jerusalem Bible “with any report or story.”
Say anything bad about may be equivalent to “say that you have done anything bad,” “say bad words about your reputation,” or “put bad words upon your name.”
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 .
We have not received any letters about you from Judea: The phrase from Judea implies from the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders living in Rome said here (and in 28:21b–c) that they did not know of any problems between Paul and the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders in Rome implied that they had no plans to do anything against Paul.
We have not received any letters: This indicates that no letters had come to them. This clause does not imply that they knew of letters but refused to take them. Another way to translate this clause is:
No letters have come to us
Judea: This is a province that included Jerusalem. But both Paul and the Jewish leaders were familiar with what Judea was, so they would not have described it as a province here.
28:21b
any of the brothers: Here the word brothers refers to fellow Jews. In some languages a literal translation would wrongly indicate fellow Christians. If so, you may want to indicate the correct meaning in some way. For example:
any of our people (Good News Translation) -or-
any countryman of ours (Revised English Bible)
28:21c
reported or even mentioned: Here the word reported probably refers to an official report from the leaders in Jerusalem. Then the words even mentioned refer to any unofficial story or information about Paul that someone may have told the Jewish leaders in Rome. Other ways to translate this phrase are:
any report or story (New Jerusalem Bible) -or-
said anything, officially or unofficially, (Phillips’ New Testament in Modern English)
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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