“One group relates to the Greek verb that means ‘to show, make known or reveal God’s glory to people.’ The word ‘glory’ here retains the same sense described in the first group. (See glory (of God or Jesus))
“[Here] we used the expressions ‘show (the Father’s) greatness,’ ’cause the people to recognize that God is great,” “make his greatness obvious, apparent.’
“John 14:13, for example, ‘that the Father may be glorified,’ is rendered as ‘so that I can show the people the greatness of my Father.’ On one occasion (John 17:10 ‘I am glorified in them’), we used ‘because of them people saw my greatness.’
John 14:13 ‘Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified.’
John 17:1 ‘Father, … glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee.’
In Hindi a differentiation is made between the way that the different persons of the Trinity are addressed by a regular person or by another person of the Trinity. When Jesus addresses God the Father or when God the Father addresses Jesus, a familiar form of address is used, unlike the way that any of them would be addressed with a honorific (pl.) form by anyone else.
Following are a number of back-translations of John 17:10:
Chol: “All who belong to you also are mine. All who are mine are yours. My greatness has been shown in the believers.”
Mezquital Otomi: “All mine are yours and all yours are mine. We own them together. My glory appears in them.”
Yatzachi Zapotec: “And all the people who follow me are your children. And thus it is, whoever are your children are also my children. I receive honor because of what they do.”
Central Pame: “. . . It is apparent that I am glorious when the people I rule live righteously.” (Source for this and above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
Uma: “All people who are my portion are your (sing.) portion, Father. And all people who are your (sing.) portion are my portion. They are the ones who show the bigness of my life.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “All that are/is mine are/is yours and all that are/is yours are/is mine. And I am honored/made great by them, because they trust in me.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And as for the people who belong to you, they are mine also, and all that are mine are yours also. And by means of them my power is known.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because all that-is/who-are mine is/are yours (sing.), and what is/are yours (sing.), is/are likewise also mine. And I am already being-honored/praised by-means-of them.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “All the ones who are mine, these are indeed yours, and all who are yours, they’re mine too. And my glory is apparent in/to them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “All those who are in my hand are in your hand. Those who are in your hand are in my hand. I will be looked upon favorably because of them.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
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.”
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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®).
All I have, though neuter in Greek, refers to those you gave me of verse 9 (note also the use of the neuter in verse 2). The phrase all you have is also neuter. To make clear that all refers to people (as clearly shown by the pronoun them at the end of verse 10), it may be necessary to expand the first part of verse 10, for example, “All those people who belong to me, belong to you, and all who belong to you belong to me.”
And my glory is shown through them is more literally “and I have been glorified in them.” The meaning of “to glorify” is not “to bring honor to” (Goodspeed “and they have done me honor”), but “to reveal the glory of” (Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “through them is my glory seen”). The Greek is in the perfect tense (“I have been glorified”), used to indicate the continuing revelation of Jesus’ glory through his disciples. The perfect tense suggests that the time perspective is that of the writing of the Gospel rather than that of Jesus’ own day; its force is probably best expressed by the present tense in English.
The passive expression, my glory is shown through them, must be made active and causative in some languages, for example, “they show how glorious I am” or “… what my glory really is.”
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 .
All I have is Yours, and all You have is Mine: These clauses continue to speak about Jesus’ disciples. This sentence shows the unity of Father and Son: what belongs to one, belongs to the other. See 16:15a and the notes there. For example:
All I have is yours, and all you have is mine (Good News Translation) -or-
All those people who belong to me, belong to you, and all who belong to you belong to me. (TH)
All: This pronoun here refers to all the disciples there with Jesus. In 17:6–19 Jesus prayed about his disciples there with him.
Yours: The word Yours means “belonging to you,” meaning here “belonging to God the Father.”
Mine: The word Mine means “belonging to me,” meaning here “belonging to Jesus.”
17:10c
and in them I have been glorified: This clause indicates that the disciples had shown or revealed his greatness and glory. And the verb tense indicates that they continued to glorify Christ. See Key Biblical TermsGlory, Glorious, Glorify, C.3. The verb havebeen glorified is passive. There are at least two ways to translate it:
• Using a passive verb. For example:
I have been given glory by the people you have given me. (God’s Word) -or-
and my glory is shown through them (Good News Translation) -or-
and through them is my glory revealed (Revised English Bible)
• Using an active verb. For example:
and they will bring glory to me (Contemporary English Version) -or-
And glory has come to me through them. (New International Version) -or-
and my disciples showed how wonderful I am
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