troubled in spirit

The Greek in John 13:21 that is translated as “troubled in spirit” or similar in English is translated in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) as heftig erregt or “greatly moved (or “excited”).”

truly truly - I tell you

The Greek that is often translated in English as “truly, truly, I tell you” or similar is translated in the Russian BTI translation (publ. 2015) as Поверьте Мне (Pover’te Mne) or “trust me.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)

See also Amen.

betray

The Greek that is translated as “betray” in English does not have an immediately corresponding term in Tado. The term that was chosen there was “sell.” (Source: Budy Karmoy in this blog post )

the last supper (icon)

Following is a contemporary Ukrainian Orthodox icon of the last supper by Ulyana Tomkevych.

 

Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )

complete verse (John 13:21)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 13:21:

  • Uma: “After Yesus spoke like that, he was sad and he said: ‘These my words are very true: One from among you will sell me to my enemies.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “When Isa had finished saying this, he was very troubled/sad in his liver and he said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And while Jesus was saying this, his breath became very painful, and he said to his disciples, ‘Very true what I say to you, that one of you is going to betray me so that I will be killed.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When Jesus had said that, he was extremely sorrowful (lit. his thoughts hurt extremely) and he said to his disciples in-direct-speech, ‘This that I say is true that there is one of you who will betray me.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “When Jesus had said that, it’s like there was something really-bothering him. Therefore he now spoke plainly saying, ‘This which I am saying is the truth, that there is one of you here who will be the one to lead the ones wanting to kill me.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Having said this, Jesus hurt in his heart. Then he spoke straightly and said, ‘Truly I tell you that one of you will betray me.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

the last supper (image)

Click here to see the image in higher resolution.

Willy Wiedmann, the artist, commented on this picture: “In spite of some difficulty, and unlike Leonardo da Vinci [see here ] I did not set my last supper in a theatrical scene with Jesus in the center behind an elongated table with all the disciples, with two at each end so that that there are 11 seated behind the table. And not like the panel by Juan de Juanes (1623-79) [see here ] in which the six disciples left and right are very dynamic figures. And also not like Martin Schongauer’s Last Supper [see here ] with a slightly shorter table (also incidentally very similar to Juanes in the attitudes of the figures) and two figures seen from the back in the foreground of the panel. Instead I have given the Master the middle place to the foreground, with his back to us to finally leave the controversial Jesus-existential questions unanswered. Slightly symbolically it means that he is leaving his world. The iris color is meant to transfer the rainbow to Jesus, that God once linked to Noah (my kingdom is not of this world). I attempted to present answers that correspond to the characters of each individual.”

Image and text taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

For other images of Willy Wiedmann paintings in TIPs, see here.

 

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China.

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:

Beginning of the Holy Communion
You have this as food and this is my body.

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

 

Acrylic on canvas painting by Hanna-Cheriyan Varghese, used with permission by the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) at Princeton Theological Seminary. You can purchase this and many other artworks by artists in residence at the OSMC in high resolution and without a watermark via the OSMC website .

“Hanna-Cheriyan Varghese (1938 – 2009) of Selangor, Malaysia, was the artist in residence at OMSC for the 2006–2007 academic year. She was born to Christian parents, and she remembered her mother taking her to a different worship service every week: ‘My parents encouraged me to attend different churches so that my siblings and I would appreciate the liturgy and traditions of the Christian believers of different denominations. Christians are a minority in Malaysia so we continue to struggle for our identity in a Muslim society. There is no open conflict as such.’

“She always had a passion for painting and drawing. She worked in the mediums of acrylic paint and Batik dye.

“‘All creative work, be it the spoken word, the written word or the sung word, are essentials in praise and worship, meditation, education, inculturation and evangelism. This also includes art and pictures, which is universal seeing.’ Hanna Varghese.” (Source )

See also the last supper (icon) and We All are One in Christ.

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.

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.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.