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.'”
The Greek that is translated as “serpent” in English is translated in Uab Meto as koko, a semi-mythical animal.
Pieter Middelkoop (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 130ff. ) explains: “In various translations [the Hebrew term] nachash is rendered by ‘serpent’, but the difficulty is that in Uab Meto there is no general word for serpent. Curiously enough they use a general word, kauna, including all kinds of insects, iguana, lizards and serpents. But the python is never called kauna: it has its own name in Uab Meto, i.e. liuksain. But Atoni people [the groups that speaks Uab Meto] never mention its name because it is taboo and so circumscribe it as, Uis meto, ‘Lord of the dry land.’ And whereas lizards, etc. are also called kauna, the crocodile is excepted, never being called kauna. Its name, besimnasi, is also taboo and therefore it is indicated by the title, Uis Oe, that means ‘Lord of the water.’
“Each kind of serpent is indicated by its own name, preceded by the word kauna, so, for instance, kauna umeke is a kind of serpent, the principal food of which are mice, and therefore it is also called kaunifo, ’mice serpent’; and kaun usau, a kind of poisonous viper. Consequently it is impossible to render serpent’ in Uab Meto with kauna because it covers too wide an area of very different species. (…)
“Now in Timor there is a kind of semi-mythical animal, i.e. koko. There are three kinds of koko:
koko manu with legs and wings, a kind of flying lizard;
koko poli (koko belu), a kind of springing reptile using its tail to spring;
koko kauna, a very big kind; some old Atonis told me that it is nearly as big as a python, but different in hue. However, the explanations concerning its size differ rather much, but anyhow the koko is a mythical figure in the stories, that can speak and converse with man.
“(…) One cannot say that it is only a mythical figure, because the Atonis say that their ancestors have seen it and had intercourse with it. Nowadays, when one asks if anybody has seen it, the general reply is in the negative. As an exception, one may meet someone who says that he has.
“It is quite clear that the koko in the belief of the Atonis is of the same species as the nachash in the Scripture.”
In the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) it was translated as pulateriârssuk or “bade earthworm.” “The translation employs a descriptive Greenlandic word, pulateriârssuk (modern pulateriaarsuk) ‘snake,’ which is based on the noun pulateriaĸ (modern pulateriaq) ‘earthworm’ (itself derived from the verb pulavoĸ [modern pulavoq] ‘creep, crawl’) combined with the suffix –arssuk (modern –arsuk), meaning ‘bad,’ that is, ‘bad earthworm.’ This term would have easily created a frame of reference for the target audience irrespective of whether they were familiar with snakes.” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)
The following is a stained glass window from the Three choir windows in the Marienkirche, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, of the 14th century, depicting the fall:
Source: Der gläserne Schatz: Die Bilderbibel der St. Marienkirche in Frankfurt (Oder), Neuer Berlin Verlag, 2005, hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a public domain license
Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )
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, the Jarai and the Adamawa Fulfulde translation both use the exclusive pronoun, excluding the snake.
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 3:2:
Kankanaey: “The woman said answering, ‘God said that we (excl.) may eat from all the fruit of the trees” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Newari: “The woman said to the snake — ‘It is certainly all right to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “The woman answered, ‘We (excl.) can-eat any fruit from a tree here in the garden,” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “The woman replied, ‘What God said was, ‘Do not eat the fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the park/garden or touch it. If you do that, you will die. But you can eat fruit from any of the other trees.”” (Source: Translation for Translators)
And the woman said to the serpent: said introduces a response and may be better translated “replied, answered.” And since the woman’s reply in fact denies what the snake is suggesting, in some languages it will be natural to begin the reply with “No! ….”
We may eat: in languages in which the plural pronouns have various kinds of inclusion and exclusion, We should express “I [the woman speaking] and someone else [excluding the serpent].” The sense is “We are permitted to eat,” “God said we could eat,” “God allows us to eat.” Of the fruit of the trees of the garden means “fruit of any tree” (Good News Translation), “fruit of every tree,” or “fruit of all the trees.”
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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