The Greek that is translated as “beginning” in English is translated in the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “primordial beginning” (Uranfang).
See also In the beginning and deep (noun).
devil
The Greek that is translated in English as “devil” (itself via late Latin from Greek diabolos: “accuser, slanderer”) is sometimes translated with indigenous specific names, such as “the avaricious one” in Tetelcingo Nahuatl, “the malicious deity” in Toraja-Sa’dan (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), or in Yoruba as èṣù. “Èṣù is thought of as bringing evil, but also as giving protection. The birth of a child may be attributed to him, as the names given to some babies show, Èṣùbiyi (Èṣù brought this forth), and Èṣùtoyin (Èṣù is worthy of praise).” (Source: John Hargreaves in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 39ff. . See also this article by Tunde Adegbola: Èṣù is not Satan: A Christian apologist’s perspective .)
Other translations include:
- Muna: Kafeompu’ando seetani or “Master of the evil-spirits” (source: René van den Berg)
- Mairasi: owe er epar nan or “headman of malevolent spirits” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
- Central Subanen: Palin or “Perverter” (incl. in 2 Cor. 6:15) (source: Robert Brichoux in OPTAT 1988/2, p. 80ff. )
- Huehuetla Tepehua: “chief of demons”
- Ojitlán Chinantec: as “head of the worldlings” (source for the last two: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125).
- Mandarin Chinese móguǐ (魔鬼), literally “magical ghost.” This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32)
- Uma: “King of Evil-ones” (source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “leader of demons” (source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Bariai: “the bad man” (source: Bariai Back Translation)
- Kupsabiny: “the Enemy” (source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
In Lak and Shughni it is translated with terms of feminine gender. Vitaly Voinov tells this story (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):
“In the Lak language of Dagestan, the names ‘Iblis’ and ‘sheytan’ (referring to Satan and his minions, respectively) in this language were borrowed from the Arabic Islamic tradition, but they entered Lak as feminine nouns, not masculine nouns. This means that they grammatically function like nouns referring to females in Lak; in other words, Laks are likely to think of Iblis as a woman, not a man, because of the obligatory grammatical patterning of Lak noun classes. Thus, when the team explained (in Russian) what the Lak translation of Jesus’ wilderness temptation narrative at the beginning of Matthew 4 said, it sounded something like the following: ‘After this, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Iblis… .The temptress came to Jesus, and she said to Him…’
“Since this information (that the devil is a female spirit) is part of the very name used for Satan in Lak, nothing can really be done about this in the translation. The Lak translator did not think that the feminine gender of Iblis should cause any serious misunderstandings among readers, so we agreed to leave it in the translation. Prior to this, I had never heard about languages in which the devil is pictured as a woman, but recently I was told by a speaker of the Shughni language that in their language Sheytan is also feminine. This puts an interesting spin on things. The devil is of course a spirit, neither male nor female in a biologically-meaningful sense. But Bible translators are by nature very risk-aversive and, where possible, want to avoid any translation that might feed misleading information to readers. So what can a translator do about this? In many cases, such as the present one, one has to just accept the existing language structure and go on.”
See also unclean spirit / evil spirit, demon, and Beelzebul.
father of lies
The Greek in John 8:44 that is translated in English as “father of lies” or similar is translated as “(he is the one) who causes people to lie” in Asháninka, “chief of liars” in Shipibo-Conibo, “originator of lies” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac, and “all liars originate from the devil” in Chol. (Source: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)
truth
Nida (1947, p. 230) says this about the translation of the concept of “truth”: “The words for ‘truth’ and ‘true’ are not always the most readily discovered in aboriginal languages. In some instances the only expression which corresponds to ‘true’ is something like ‘it happened.’ A falsehood is something that ‘did not happen.’ In a good many languages the meaning of ‘truth’ is expressed by the words signifying ‘straight’ and ‘direct.’ Untruth is accordingly ‘crookedness.’ An abstract noun such as English “truth” is quite difficult to find in some instances. Only an expression such as ‘true statement’ or ‘true word’ will be found to correspond to English ‘truth.’”
The Greek, Latin, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is usually translated in English as “truth” is translated in Luchazi with vusunga: “the quality of being straight” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. ), in Obolo as atikọ or “good/correct talk” (source: Enene Enene), and in Ekari as maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (esp. in John 14:6 and 17; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) tells of the translation into Kui which usually is “true-thing.” In some instances however, such as in the second part of John 17:17 (“your word is truth” in English), the use of “true-thing” indicated that there might be other occasions when it’s not true, so here the translation was a a form of “pure, holy.”
The translation committee of the Malay “Good News Bible” (Alkitab Berita Baik, see here ) wrestled with the translation of “truth” in the Gospel of John:
“Our Malay Committee also concluded that ‘truth’ as used in the Gospel of John was used either of God himself, or of God’s revelation of himself, or in an extended sense as a reference to those who had responded to God’s self-disclosure. In John 8:32 the New Malay translation reads ‘You will know the truth about God, and the truth about God will make you free.’ In John 8:44 this meaning is brought out by translating, ‘He has never been on the side of God, because there is no truth in him.’ Accordingly Jesus ‘tells the truth about God’ in 8:45, 46 (see also 16:7 and 8:37a). Then, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6) becomes ‘I am the one who leads men to God, the one who reveals who and what God is, and the one who gives men life.” At 3:21 the translation reads ” … whoever obeys the truth, that is God himself, comes to the light …’; 16:13a appears as ‘he will lead you into the full truth about God’; and in 18:37 Jesus affirms ‘I came into the world to reveal the truth about God, and whoever obeys God listens to me.’ On this basis also 1:14 was translated ‘we saw his glory, the glory which he had as the Father’s only Son. Through him God has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace)’; and 1:17 appears as ‘God gave the law through Moses; but through Jesus Christ he has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace).'” (Source: Barclay Newman in The Bible Translator 1974, p. 432ff. )
The German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) has followed a somewhat similar path to the Malay committee 50 years earlier in the gospel of John. In John 1 it translates “truth as “God’s nature,” in John 3 as “God’s will,” in John 8 as “God’s reality,” in John 14 as “encountering God,” and in John 16 as “God’s truth.”
complete verse (John 8:44)
Following are a number of back-translations of John 8:44:
- Uma: “The King of Evil-ones is your father! And you continually want to follow the will of that your father. From the beginning he was already a killer. He never says what is true, because there is nothing that is true in him. If he lies, that is to be expected, because he was already a liar, and all people who lie follow/take after his behavior.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “Isa said yet to those people, ‘You, your father is the leader of demons and that is what you want to follow, the will of your father. Since the very beginning he has always killed. He has not followed the truth because there is nothing true in him. That is what he does, lying, for that is his custom. He is really a liar and he is the source of all lies.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Your Father is Satan, and the desire of your father is also the thing that you want to do. From the beginning Satan was a murderer. He has no part with the true teaching because there is nothing true in him. If he speaks, then he speaks a lie because a lie is the only thing that he can think about. He is a liar and from him originates every lie.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “You are like your father who is Satanas, and your purpose is to obey what that father of yours wants. He has been a murderer starting-from the beginning until now. Neither does he say anything true, because he has nothing to-do-with that. If/When he lies, he does what is fitting to his custom/character, because he is a consistent-liar and he moreover is the origin of lies.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “Satanas for sure is the one who is your father. Whatever he wants, that is what you are wanting to do. It’s true, he was a murderer from long ago and an enemy of the truth, for this truth will really never-ever be found in him. When he lies, well that’s his nature/way, because he really is a habitual-liar and he is the source of lies.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
- Tenango Otomi: “He who is as a father to you is the devil. And you want to please him. The devil has been a murderer from his beginning. He never speaks what is true. When he speaks, it is all lies. He speaks his own ideas because he is a liar. He is as father to those who lie.” (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.
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. )
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