The Angry Christ

Painting by Lino Pontebon, “an artist from the Negros island of the Philippines. The area in which he lives has been the scene of considerable military action and this has added to the already hard life of the peasants. His painting of the angry Christ captures a mood in the Philippines and reflects the prevailing anger of the people at being manipulated by forces beyond their control.

The painting became popular in many parts of the world, especially among the young. It counteracts the image of ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’ with the reminder that Jesus also became angry at injustice.”

(Source for this and the image: The Bible Through Asian Eyes by Masao Takenaka and Ron O’Grady 1991)

buying / selling

The Greek that is translated as “buying” and “selling” in English is both translated in Ulithian as “exchange.” Stephen Hre Kio (in The Bible Translator 1987, p. 246f. ) explains: “There are buyers and sellers in the Temple whom Jesus drove away. But Ulithians do not buy or sell; they only exchange. And so we have ‘exchange’ for both buying and selling.”

In righteous anger he attacked hypocrisy (image)

“Jesus is doing something extremely dangerous here. The Thai temple is a place in which it is considered by religious people inappropriate to show any anger or strong emotions. It has to be an extremely urgent reason for someone to do something as violent as this in such a sacred space.”

Drawing by Sawai Chinnawong who employs northern and central Thailand’s popular distinctive artistic style originally used to depict Buddhist moral principles and other religious themes; explanation by Paul DeNeui. From That Man Who Came to Save Us by Sawai Chinnawong and Paul H. DeNeui, William Carey Library, 2010.

For more images by Sawai Chinnawong in TIPs see here.

sell

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “sell” in English is translated in Noongar as wort-bangal or “away-barter.” Note that “buy” is translated as bangal-barranga or “get-barter.” (Source: Bardip Ruth-Ang 2020)

See also buy and buying / selling.

John as a first-person evangelist (John 21:6)

In the Yatzachi Zapotec translation of the Gospel of John, any reference to the evangelist and presumed narrator is done in the first person.

The translator Inez Butler explains (in: Notes on Translation, September 1967, pp. 10ff.):

“In revising the Gospel of John in Yatzachi Zapotec we realized from the start that the third person references of Jesus to himself as Son of Man had to be converted into first person references, but only more recently have we decided that similar change is necessary in John’s references to himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’ As I worked on those changes and questioned the informant about his understanding of other passages in the Gospel, I discovered that the reader misses the whole focus of the book as an eyewitness account unless every reference to the disciples indicates the writer’s membership in the group. In view of that we went back through the entire book looking for ways to cue in the reader to the fact that John was an eyewitness and a participant in a many of the events, as well as the historian.

“When the disciples were participants in events along with Jesus, it was necessary to make explicit the fact that they accompanied him, although in the source language that is left implicit, since otherwise our rendering would imply that they were not present.”

In this verse, the Yatzachi Zapotec says: “Then he said to us. . .Then we threw our fish nets and we were not able to pull them back into the boat, so many fish had gone into them.”

complete verse (John 2:16)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 2:16:

  • Uma: “He said to the dove sellers: ‘Get out, take all that outside! Do not treat/consider my Father’s House a selling house!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “And he said to the people trading pigeons, ‘Remove your merchandise from this temple. Don’t make this temple into a market, for this is the house of my Father, God.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And he said to those who sell doves, he said, ‘You get away from there. Don’t make into a market this house of my father God.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Then he said to the ones-selling pigeons/doves, ‘Remove those (rebuke particle)! Don’t turn-my Father’s house -into a marketplace!'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “And then he approached those sellers of pigeons. He said to them, ‘You get these wares of yours out of here also! Don’t make a store of this house of my Father!'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “He told the dove sellers, ‘Take away what you have here. He is my Father’s house. Do not make it into a market place.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)