Photo by NateBergin, hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 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 )
Following are a number of back-translations of John 10:14:
Uma: “‘I am the good shepherd. Like my Father knows me, and I know my Father, so also I know my sheep, and my sheep know me. I give my life so that my sheep live.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “I,’ said Isa, ‘am figuratively the shepherd who takes good care of his sheep. I and my Father really know each other. Likewise I also know the people who belong to me and they also know me. I submit to dying for the people who belong to me.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “But I however am the good care-taker. Because the mutual-knowing of my sheep and me, it is the same as the mutual-knowing of my Father and me. I moreover am the one who will die so that my sheep have a way to live.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “I am the good shepherd. In the way in which I am known by my Father and he also is known to me, like that indeed I know my own sheep and they also know me. And I really will give my life/breath just because of them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “I am like a good shepherd. My Father knows me and I also know my Father. Like this now, I know all of my sheep. They also know me. And I give up my life to save my sheep.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The Greek, Latin, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is translated as “shepherd” in English is translated in Kouya as Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ — ” tender of sheep.”
Philip Saunders (p. 231) explains:
“Then one day they tackled the thorny problem of ‘shepherd’. It was problematic because Kouyas don’t have herdsmen who stay with the sheep all the time. Sheep wander freely round the village and its outskirts, and often a young lad will be detailed to drive sheep to another feeding spot. So the usual Kouya expression meant a ‘driver of sheep’, which would miss the idea of a ‘nurturing’ shepherd. ‘A sheep nurturer’ was possible to say, but it was unnatural in most contexts. The group came up with Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ which meant ‘a tender of sheep’, that is one who keeps an eye on the sheep to make sure they are all right. All, including the translators, agreed that this was a most satisfactory solution.”
Other translations include:
Chuj: “carer” (there was no single word for “shepherd”) (source: Ronald Ross)
Muna: “sheep guard” (dhagano dhumba) (there was no immediate lexical equivalent) (source: René van den Berg),
Mairasi: “people who took care of domesticated animals” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.
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®).
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
I am the good shepherd: This clause is the same as in 10:11a. See the notes on 10:11a and translate it in both places in the same or a similar way.
10:14b–15a
10:14b–15a contains a double comparison. The way Jesus knows his people is compared to the way God the Father knows Jesus. Also, the way Jesus’ people know him is compared to the way Jesus knows God. In some languages it may be better to reorder this to compare just one thing to one other thing. For example:
I know my sheep as the Father knows me. My sheep know me as I know the Father. (God’s Word)
-or-
I know my sheep, as the Father knows me. And my sheep know me, as I know the Father. (New Century Version)
10:14b
I know My sheep and My sheep know Me: The phrase My sheep refers to Jesus’ own people, represented in the metaphor by the sheep. Some translations like the Berean Standard Bible supply a noun here, but the Greek is literally “my own.”
know: This word here refers to knowing someone personally. The good shepherd knows and recognizes each of his sheep, which is why he can call each one by name. And Jesus knows well each of his people as an individual, recognizing and accepting everyone who follows him. And they know him in that way also. They recognize his voice, his calling, and his leading.
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