complete verse (John 8:38)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 8:38:

  • Uma: “What I see at my Father, that is why I say to you. But you do what was taught to you by your fathers.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “The things I teach to you I have heard from my Father but you, you do what you have heard from your father.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “That which my Father shows me is what I say. And you, by contrast, do what you heard from your own father.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “What I am saying, it is only what my Father has shown me. And that very-thing is what you also are doing, because you also, you are following what your father said.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “I am telling the things I have seen there with my Father. It’s like that indeed with you, you are doing whatever you have heard from your father.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “All that I have seen there where my Father lives I have told you. But you continue to do what your father says.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing his disciples and common people

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or 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 Translator 2002, 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.

Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.

In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.

Father (address for God)

The Greek that is translated with the capitalized “Father” in English when referring to God is translated in Highland Totonac with the regular word for (biological) father to which a suffix is added to indicate respect. The same also is used for “Lord” when referring to Jesus. (Source: Hermann Aschmann in The Bible Translator 1950, p. 171ff. )

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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. In the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017, God the Father is addressed with mi-chichi (御父). This form has the “divine” honorific prefix mi– preceding the archaic honorific form chichi for “father.”

If, however, Jesus addresses his Father, he is using chichi-o (父を) which is also highly respectful but does not have the “divine” honorific. (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also Lord and my / our Father.

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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.

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

See also pronoun for “God”.

formal 2nd person plural pronoun (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 formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).

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

Translation commentary on John 8:38

In Greek the pronouns I and you are in focus.

I talk about what my Father has shown me is more literally “I talk about what I have seen with the Father.” New English Bible translates “I am revealing in words what I saw in my Father’s presence”; Jerusalem Bible has “What I, for my part, speak of is what I have seen with my Father.” There is no problem in translating “the Father” as my Father. It is done by Good News Translation, New English Bible Jerusalem Bible, and Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch, and in this context, “the Father” obviously means my Father. Good News Translation attempts to make this verse easier for its readers to understand by following several other translational techniques. First, it reverses the Greek order of the clauses what my Father has shown me and I talk about, to achieve a more natural English sentence structure. Second, it takes the Greek expression “what I have seen with the Father” to mean what my Father has shown me. Thus Good News Translation takes the phrase “with the Father” (New English Bible “in my Father’s presence”) to have the force of agency, or means. The subject of this clause in Greek (“I”) can be shifted into the object position in English (Good News Translation me), and my Father can be made into the subject of the clause by the use of a causative verb (Good News Translation has shown), in place of the simple verb (“have seen”) of the Greek text. The only problem in doing so is that, in the Greek text, the focus is more on “what I have seen” than on what my Father has shown. It may be argued that Good News Translation is here reading an alternative Greek text (“from the Father”), on the basis of which one could more easily support its exegesis of this verse, but that is not really so.

Two observations are necessary regarding the clause but you do what your father has told you. (1) The verb which Good News Translation translates as an indicative (you do) may also be taken as an imperative (“do”), since the form would be the same in Greek. (2) The phrase your father is literally “the father”; it may mean either “the father” in an absolute sense (= “God the Father”) as in the first half of the verse, or as the father of the Jews (your father = “the Devil”). It is possible to translate the verb as an imperative and combine it with the interpretation that “the father” refers to God: “Do what God the Father has told you.” Good News Translation takes the other possible combination (indicative plus reference to the father of the Jews = “the Devil”); most other modern translations agree with this interpretation (for example, New English Bible, New American Bible, Jerusalem Bible, Moffatt, Phillips, La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Luther, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch).

The perfect tense of the verb (Greek “I have seen”; Good News Translation my Father has shown) and the phrase “with my father” both imply a pre-existent knowledge possessed by Jesus which continues into the present. This is contrasted with the aorist verb (Greek you “heard”; Good News Translation has told) which would refer to some moment in history, either to the giving of the Law through Moses or the proclamation of God’s truth through Jesus Christ. However, most translators seem to prefer to make no distinction between the tense of these verbs, rendering both in the perfect tense.

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 .