The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is translated as “naked” in English is translated in Enlhet with a figure of speech: “(one’s) smoothness.” (Source: Jacob Loewen in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 24ff. )
In Elhomwe the word for “naked” is “shameful to use, and would never be used by a preacher in church.” Therefore “without clothes” is used. (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
In Cherokee it is translated as “being in a bodily state.” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 30)
In the Catholic Mandarin ChineseSigao version and the Protestant Union Version, historical Chinese idioms are used: chìshēn lòutǐ (赤身露體 / 赤身露体) or chìshēn luǒtǐ (赤身裸體 / 赤身裸体): “bare and uncovered body.” (Source: Toshikazu S. Foley in Hong Kong Journal of Catholic Studies, 2011, p. 45ff.)
The Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Greek that is translated into English as “garden” is translated into Naskapi with a word that means “a place for things to grow.”
Doug Lockhart (in Word Alive 2013 ) explains: “‘Garden’ was another term that had no Naskapi equivalent. ‘There are no gardens here,’ Bill [Jancewicz, a translation consultant] explains. ‘So what word do you use for ‘Garden of Eden,’ and have it communicate something logical in Naskapi? We finally came up with a word that means ‘a place for things to grow,’ like a park.'”
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.
Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”
In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.
Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)
In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”
3:1 In the garden that Yahweh created there were many animals. Out of all the animals, there was one very cunning creature compared to a serpent who was very deceitful.
It happened that the man and the woman were walking in the garden and the serpent approached them and spoke to them cunningly. To the woman he said, “Did Yahweh really say, ‘You must not eat from any fruit tree in the garden’?”
3:2 The woman replied to the serpent, “No, Yahweh gave us all the trees in the garden to eat from.
3:3 But there is one tree in the middle of the garden whose fruit we must not eat nor touch. If we do, our lives will be ruined and there will be death thereafter.
3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “‘Your lives will be ruined and you will die thereafter?’ Ha. No, you will not die.
3:5 Yahweh knows that when you eat from this tree your eyes will be opened and you will become enlightened. Yahweh knows good and evil, if you know good and evil you will become like God.”
3:6 The woman looked at the tree with its many fruits with desire. The fruits were pleasing to her eyes and aroused her desire for wisdom. She picked the fruit and ate it. She gave some of the fruit to her husband who also ate it.
3:7 Suddenly, their eyes were opened, they looked at themselves and realized that they were naked. They had transgressed. They tried to cover their bodies. They ran to find large fig leaves which they gathered and weaved together to hide their nakedness.
3:8 In the cool of the evening, Yahweh walked through the garden. The man and woman were still trying to cover their bodies when they heard his footsteps. The man and woman hid fearfully behind the trees.
3:9 Yahweh called to the man “Where are you? Why have you not come to me?”
3:10 The man emerged from behind the trees and answered Yahweh, “I heard you but because I was naked, I was afraid to come to you, so I hid behind the trees.”
3:11 And Yahweh replied, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree which I commanded you not to eat from?”
3:12 Ashamedly, the man replied, “It was the woman you created from my rib to be my companion who picked the fruit from the tree and gave it to me to eat.”
3:13 And Yahweh said to the woman, “What have you done?”
Fearfully, the woman emerged from the trees and replied, “It was the serpent who deceived me. I fell for his trick and ate the fruit from the tree.”
3:14 And Yahweh looked at the serpent and cursed it saying, “Above all the animals, all livestock and wild animals, you are the least. You will be punished by remaining low and crawling on your belly in the dust, you will breathe dust for the rest of your life.
3:15 The serpent and the woman will be enemies; your offspring will be enemies. One of her descendants will crush your head and you will bite his feet.”
3:16 To the woman Yahweh spoke, “For the rest of your life you face struggles and hardship, you will suffer severe childbearing, severe labor and the burden of child rearing will be hard. You will desire a husband as your partner, but your husband will rule over you.”
3:17 To the man Yahweh spoke, “I commanded you not to eat from the tree, but you listened to your wife and ate it. For the rest of your life, you will face struggles and hardship. You will work hard to plow the land for food
3:18 but the soil will produce thorns and weeds that will ruin your crops.
3:19 You will sweat and work hard to gather food for the rest of your life. When your body dies it will break down and return to the dust from which it came. I, Yahweh, created man from dust and to the dust you will return.”
3:20 The man Adam named the woman Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. Eve.
3:21 Yahweh made clothes from animal skin and clothed them.
3:22 And Yahweh said to them, “You have eaten from the tree and transgressed. Now you are like us; you know good and evil. If one eats from the tree of life they will live forever. If you also eat from the tree of life, you will live forever. This cannot be allowed, you must leave.”
3:23 In the garden where they were, Yahweh sent them away. The same soil that Yahweh created human from is the same soil Adam will plow and toil laboriously.
3:24 They left the garden walking towards the East. When they left Yahweh commanded the heavenly beings to guard the tree of life on either side. In the center he placed a sword of fire flashing back and forth. Adam and Eve will never be able to return, the garden remains guarded.
Back-translation by Amakedia Wallen, coordinated by Tashi Widmer
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Genesis 3:10:
Kankanaey: “The man answered, ‘I heard you (sing.) walking in this land, and I went and hid because I was naked and I was afraid of you (sing.).'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Newari: “He answered — ‘I heard your sound in the garden. Because I was naked I was afraid and I was hiding.'” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “The man replied, ‘I heard you (sing.) in the garden, so I hid for I am afraid because I’m naked.'” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “The man replied, ‘I heard the sound of your footsteps/walking in the garden, and I was naked, so I was afraid and I hid myself.'” (Source: Translation for Translators)
I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid: as in verse 8 it may be necessary to say “I heard the sound of your footsteps in the garden” or “I heard you walking in the garden.” Hearing God’s sound and being naked had caused Adam to be afraid, and as a consequence he had hidden himself.
Note that Revised Standard Version, but not New Revised Standard Version, uses thee when referring to God. Some languages require an honorific pronoun when addressing God. However, thee should not be taken to mean that an honorific is required in the language of translation, unless, of course, it is natural and expected.
I was naked: according to verse 7 Adam in verse 10 is no longer totally naked. Therefore the term for naked used here should, if possible, indicate this. Some languages have terms for varying degrees of nakedness. Some languages make this kind of distinction by saying, for example, “I was naked up” or “I was chest naked,” meaning that his loins were covered, but the rest of him was exposed.
Quoted with permission from Reyburn, William D. and Fry, Euan McG. A Handbook on Genesis. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1997. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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