net

The Greek terms that are used for what is translated as “net” in English are translated in languages like Navajo (Dinė) where fishing with nets is not known as “instruments to catch (or: bring out) the fish.” (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)

In Rundi the term urusenga is used. Rosemary Guillebaud (in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 15ff. ) tells this story:

“[People living close to lakes] produced further problems for us over fishing terms when we reached the revision of the Gospels. Fishing is practically unknown in the mountain streams and rivers, so there is hardly any vocabulary for it up-country. In Mat. 4:18 we read that Jesus saw two brethren “casting a net into the sea.” The word we used for net (urusenga) is used all over Rundi for a fishing net, whatever it is like, but when I read this to some people who live by the lake they said it was the wrong word, as from the context this happened during the daytime, and urusenga-fishing is only done at night. It appears that the urusenga is something like a shrimping net, and is used on moonless nights, when the fishermen hold flares over the side of the boat and attract a certain variety of very small fish which swim about in shoals. The net they use for day-time fishing is something like a drag-net and is called urukwabu. On enquiry inland, I never discovered a single person who knew this word. It was obviously the right one, technically speaking, but we felt that the few thousand lake-dwellers could not be weighed against almost the entire population of the country, so we had to employ the up-country word, putting an explanatory note in the margin that by the lake this net is called urukwabu.”

Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing net-fishing in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)

boat, ship

The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated “boat” or “ship” in English is translated in Chichimeca-Jonaz as “that with which we can walk on water” (source: Ronald D. Olson in Notes on Translation January, 1968, p. 15ff.), in Chitonga as a term in combination with bwato or “dugout canoe” (source: Wendland 1987, p. 72), and in Tangale as inj am or “canoe-of water” (inj — “canoe” — on its own typically refers to a traditional type of carved-out log for sleeping) (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin).

In Kouya it is translated as ‘glʋ ‘kadʋ — “big canoe.”

Philip Saunders (p. 231) explains how the Kouya team arrived at that conclusion:

“Acts chapter 27 was a challenge! It describes Paul’s sea voyage to Italy, and finally Rome. There is a storm at sea and a shipwreck on Malta, and the chapter includes much detailed nautical vocabulary. How do you translate this for a landlocked people group, most of whom have never seen the ocean? All they know are small rivers and dugout canoes.

“We knew that we could later insert some illustrations during the final paging process which would help the Kouya readers to picture what was happening, but meanwhile we struggled to find or invent meaningful terms. The ‘ship’ was a ‘big canoe’ and the ‘passengers’ were ‘the people in the big canoe’; the ‘crew’ were the ‘workers in the big canoe’; the ‘pilot’ was the ‘driver of the big canoe’; the ‘big canoe stopping place’ was the ‘harbour’, and the ‘big canoe stopping metal’ was the ‘anchor’!”

In Lokạạ it is translated as ukalangkwaa, lit. “English canoe.” “The term was not coined for the Bible translation, but rather originated in colonial times when the English arrived in Nigeria on ships. The indigenous term for a canoe was modified to represent the large, ocean-going ship of the English.” (Source: J.A. Naudé, C.L. Miller Naudé, J.O. Obono in Acta Theologica 43/2, 2023, p. 129ff. )

See also ships of Tarshish, harbor, anchor, and sailor.

It is the Lord

Batik dye artwork 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, the latter medium being an ancient decorative craft that has come into use as a high art medium in the last 50 or 60 years. A Batik image is created as a pattern or picture dyed in fabric. Certain parts of the fabric are covered with a wax, which acts as a “resist” to the colorful dyes. Hanna Varghese mastered the medium, and the sacred art images she created with it are original, bold and graphic.

“‘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 )

complete verse (John 21:6)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 21:6:

  • Uma: “He said to them: ‘Throw your nets on the right side of the boat, you will definitely be fortunate.’ They did throw their nets, and they were not able to pull it, because no kidding the manyness of the fish in it.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Isa said, ‘Throw your net there to the right side of your boat so that you will catch.’ Therefore they threw their net. They could not pull the net into the boat because of the many fish they had caught.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus said, ‘Spread out the net on the right side and you will catch something.’ And they spread out the net again, and when they pulled it up they couldn’t lift it because of the many fish that they had caught.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Jesus then said, ‘Toss-the-net on the right-side of the boat and you will get something.’ When they then tossed-the-net, they were not able-to-pull-it-up on-account-of the large-number (lit. manyness) of fish that they-had-net-fished.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “He said next to them, ‘Let your fishnet drop on the right of that boat of yours. You will be able to get some.’ They let it drop. What else but they could no longer pull it up because it was full of fish which had now entered.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Then Jesus said, ‘Throw the net to the right side of the boat and you will catch the fish.’ They cast the net. Then they couldn’t pull the net out of the water because there were many fish caught in it.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

Sung version of John 21

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®).

For more information, see here .

Translation commentary on John 21:6

He said to them (so most translations) is literally “but he said to them.”

Throw your net out on the right side of the boat is similar to most translations. New English Bible has Jesus using the technical language of an English seaman: “Shoot the net to starboard.”

The Greek word translated boat in this verse is the same one used in verse 3. It is different from the one used in verse 8, but the two words should be considered as synonymous.

In Greek the verb you will catch does not have an expressed object, but one must be supplied translationally. Good News Translation reflects most other translations, but Phillips has “you’ll have a catch,” and New English Bible “you will make a catch.” In some languages the equivalent expression would be “you will net some fish” or “you will catch some fish in your net.”

So they threw the net out is literally “therefore (oun) they threw,” but English requires an object, though the Greek obviously does not require it. The Greek term translated net is a very general one, applicable to various kinds of nets. In this context the net was probably a circular net with small weights around the edge. Such nets are still used in many parts of the world. They … could not pull it back in must be rendered in some languages as “they could not pull the net and fish back into the boat” or “… up into the boat.”

Because they had caught so many fish translates a noun phrase in Greek (literally “from the number of the fish”). Since the fish were still in the water, it may be necessary to say in some languages “because they had netted so many fish” or “because there were so many fish in the net.”

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 .