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 inclusive forms (the chief priests and Pharisees talking among themselves).
Source: SIL International Translation Department (1999)
The translator of the Wichí Lhamtés Nocten New Testament rearranged the chronology of John 12:12-19, because he found the traditional order of verses confusing. The new order is 12a, 14a, 17, 18, 12b, 13, 14b, 15, 16, 19.
The back-translation of this section is as follows:
The next day, when many people had already gone to Jerusalem to gather for the festival of Passover, Jesus mounted a donkey and then he too went into that city. And the people who had been with him the day recently when he called Lazarus who was in the tomb to rise from amongst the dead, they told others what they had seen Jesus do. And that’s why the people, when they heard that Jesus was about to enter Jerusalem, cut palm leaves and went to meet him and kept crying out saying:
“God is great!” “Blessing is with the man who comes with the word (authority) of the Lord! Blessing is with him who is the King of the people of Israel!”
Just as the age-old Writing says:
“People of Zion, don’t be afraid.
Look upon your King, he comes on a little donkey.”
But at first his disciples did not understand such things. But later when Jesus entered his greatness, then they remembered that all things that had been done thus were indeed what the age-old Writing had said about Jesus.
But the Pharisees, when they saw those things, spoke amongst themselves saying:
“You see this. If it is so, we can do nothing. Because look, everybody is going with him!”
Following are a number of back-translations of John 12:19:
Uma: “The Parisi people talked among themselves, they said: ‘We have lost! Look, all the people in the world are following him.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “So-then the Pariseo spoke together, they said, ‘Look, all the people are following him already. We (incl.) cannot do anything.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then the Pharisees said, ‘There are very many people following him. Evidently there is no longer anything that we can do.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “That being so, the Pharisees asked-each-other, ‘Look-there indeed, we are defeated! Because all people, they have become his disciples.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “The Pariseo were again discussing among themselves, saying, ‘Look-at-this, there’s nothing we are being able to do which is accomplishing anything, for just look, all the people are following/obeying him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “The Pharisees talked together saying, ‘Now you see that you can’t do anything. You see that all the people are going to Jesus.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi 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).”
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal ta (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential ta (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in <em>The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible, but most translations, especially those published in the 21st century, do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
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 show different degree of politeness is through the choice of a third person singular and plural pronoun (“he,” “she,” “it” and their various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. While it’s not uncommon to avoid pronouns altogether in Japanese, there are is a range of third person pronouns that can be used.
In these verses a number of them are used that pay particularly much respect to the referred person (or, in fact, God, as in Exodus 15:2), including kono kata (この方), sono kata (その方), and ano kata (あの方), meaning “this person,” “that person,” and “that person over there.” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
In 11.47 and in 11.57 the Pharisees and the chief priests appear together; here only the Pharisees are mentioned.
You see is the rendering of most translations, though these words may be taken as an imperative (“see”).
We are not succeeding at all (so also Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch; Phillips “There’s nothing one can do!”) is actually a second person reference in Greek: “You can do nothing.” Good News Translation shifts from second person “you” to first person “we,” since the Pharisees are speaking to one another. This is the normal way to handle the construction in English. We are not succeeding at all may be rendered negatively as “we have completely failed.” One can also render this clause “we have not realized our purposes” or “we have not fulfilled our plans” or “we have not accomplished what we set out to do.”
The whole world (so also New American Bible; New English Bible “all the world”) is literally “the world,” but, as the New American Bible footnote indicates, “the sense is that everyone is following Jesus….”
The various translations render is following him in several different ways, but the meaning is the same in all.
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 .
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