Καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἤγγισεν εἰς Βηθφαγὴ καὶ Βηθανία[ν] πρὸς τὸ ὄρος τὸ καλούμενον Ἐλαιῶν, ἀπέστειλεν δύο τῶν μαθητῶν
29When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples,
The Greek that is translated as “he sent two of his disciples” in English had to be translated in Mezquital Otomi: as “Jesus sent two of his disciples ahead to borrow a little donkey.” The implicit idea of borrowing the donkey had to be made explicit to avoid the wrong meaning that the instructions in the succeeding verses were for them to steal it. (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
See also this devotion on YouVersion .
The name that is transliterated as “Bethphage” in English is translated in Libras (Brazilian Sign Language) with a sign that combines “house” and “figs” (“Bethphage” means “house of [unripe] figs”). (Source: Missão Kophós )
“Bethphage” in Libras (source )
For more information on translations of proper names with sign language see Sign Language Bible Translations Have Something to Say to Hearing Christians .
The Greek that is often translated as “disciple” in English typically follows three types of translation: (1) those which employ a verb ‘to learn’ or ‘to be taught’, (2) those which involve an additional factor of following, or accompaniment, often in the sense of apprenticeship, and (3) those which imply imitation of the teacher.
[Chouraqui] uses the noun “adept,” which is as uncommon in French as it is in English. It’s an evocative choice on several levels. First, linguistically, it derives — via the term adeptus — from the Latin verb adipiscor, “to arrive at; to reach; to attain something by effort or striving.” It suggests those who have successfully reached the goal of their searching, and implies a certain struggle or process of learning that has been gradually overcome. But it’s also a term with a very particular history: in the Middle Ages, “adept” was used in the world of alchemy, to describe those who, after years of labor and intensive study, claimed to have discovered the Great Secret (how to turn base metals like lead into gold); it thus had the somewhat softened meaning of “someone who is completely skilled in all the secrets of their field.”
Historians of religion often use the term adept with reference to the ancient mystery religions that were so prevalent in the Mediterranean in the centuries around the time of Jesus. An adept was someone who, through a series of initiatory stages, had penetrated into the inner, hidden mysteries of the religion, who understood its rituals, symbols, and their meaning. To be an adept implied a lengthy and intensive master-disciple relationship, gradually being led further and further into the secrets of the god or goddess (Isis-Osiris, Mithras, Serapis, Hermes, etc.) — secrets that were never to be revealed to an outsider.
Is “adept” a suitable category in which to consider discipleship as we see it described in the Gospels? On some levels, the link is an attractive one, drawing both upon the social-religious framework of the ancient Mediterranean, and upon certain aspects of intimacy and obscurity/secrecy that we see in the relationship of Jesus and those who followed him. The idea that disciples are “learners” — people who are “on the way” — and that Jesus is portrayed as (and addressed as) their Master/Teacher is accurate. But the comparison is unsatisfactory on several other levels.
First, the Gospels portray Jesus’s ministry as a largely public matter — there is relatively little of the secrecy and exclusiveness that is normally associated with both the mystery cults and medieval alchemy. Jesus’s primary message is not destined for a small, elite circle of “initiates” — although the Twelve are privy to explanations, experiences and teachings that are not provided to “the crowds.” For example, in Matthew 13:10-13:
Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to [the crowds] in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’”
Etymologically, adeptus suggests someone who “has arrived,” who has attained a superior level of understanding reserved for very few. However, what we see in the Gospels, repeatedly, is a general lack of comprehension of many of Jesus’s key teachings by many of those who hear him. Many of his more cryptic sayings would have been virtually incomprehensible in their original context, and would only make sense in retrospect, in the wake of the events of Jesus’s passion, death, and resurrection. The intense master-student relationship is also lacking: the Gospels largely portray “the disciples” as a loose (and probably fluctuating) body of individuals, with minimal structure or cohesion. Finally, there seems to be little scholarly consensus about the degree to which the mystery cults had made inroads in Roman-ruled Palestine during the decades of Jesus’s life. According to Everett Ferguson in his Backgrounds of Early Christianity.
Although Christianity had points of contact with Stoicism, the mysteries, the Qumran community, and so on, the total worldview was often quite different….So far as we can tell, Christianity represented a new combination for its time…. At the beginning of the Christian era a number of local mysteries, some of great antiquity, flourished in Greece and Asia Minor. In the first century A.D. the vonly mysteries whose extension may be called universal were the mysteries of Dionysus and those of the eastern gods, especially Isis.
And Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling note, in their book The New Testament:
Examples of such mystery religions could be found in Greece… Asia Minor… Syria-Palestine… Persia… and Egypt. Though the mysteries had sacred shrines in these regions, many of them spread to other parts of the empire, including Rome. There is no clearly direct influence of the mysteries on early Christianity, but they shared a common environment and many non-Christians would have perceived Christians as members of an oriental Jewish mystery cult.56
Given the sparse archaeological and literary evidence from this period regarding mystery cults in Roman Palestine, and the apparent resistance of many Palestinian Jews to religious syncretism, Chouraqui’s use of the noun adept implies a comparison between the historical Jesus and mystery cults that is doubtful, on both the levels of chronology and religious culture. Personally, I believe this choice suggests a vision of Jesus that distances him from the religious world of ancient Judaism, thus creating a distorted view of what spiritually inspired him. But the idea of the disciples as “learners” on a journey (as the Greek term suggests) is a striking one to consider; certainly, the Gospels show us the Twelve as people who are growing, learning, and developing…but who have not yet “arrived” at the fullness of their vocation.
Scot McKnight (in The Second Testament, publ. 2023) translates it into English as apprentice.
In Luang several terms with different shades of meaning are being used.
Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.
In American Sign Language it is translated with a combination of the signs for “following” plus the sign for “group.” (Source: Ruth Anna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“disciples” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
In British Sign Language a sign is used that depicts a group of people following one person (the finger in the middle, signifying Jesus). Note that this sign is only used while Jesus is still physically present with his disciples. (Source: Anna Smith)
“Disciple in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)
See also disciples (Japanese honorifics).
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 19:29:
The olive family has over four hundred species in the world. Many of them grow in Africa, India, and Australia, but it is the one in the Bible, the European Olive Olea europaea, that has become famous. It is likely that the olive was domesticated in Egypt or the eastern Mediterranean basin in the third millennium B.C. The botanist Newberry argued that Egypt was its original home. We know from the Bible that olives grew in the hills of Samaria and in the foothills. There is a wild variety, called Olea europaea sylvestris, that is smaller than the domestic one; it produces a smaller fruit with less oil. The Apostle Paul refers to this wild variety in Romans 11:17 and 11:24. Olives are easily propagated by cuttings and by grafting fruitful species into less fruitful ones. They grow best on hillsides where the rain drains off quickly. The fruit forms by August but does not ripen until December or January.
The olive is not a big tree, reaching up to perhaps 10 meters (33 feet), but with pruning it is usually kept to around 5 meters (17 feet) tall. The leaves are grayish green above, and whitish underneath. The bark of young trees is silvery gray but gets darker and rougher as the tree ages. The trunk also gets twisted and hollow and may reach over a meter in thickness. Olives grow for hundreds of years, and some in Israel have possibly reached two thousand years.
The fruit of the olive is about 2 centimeters (1 inch) long and a bit more than a centimeter (1/2 inch) thick. It has a hard stone inside and a soft skin that covers the oily flesh. Today a mature tree may yield 10-20 kilograms (22-44 pounds) of fruit, which, when processed, will yield 1.3-2.6 kilograms (3.6 pounds) of oil.
For the Jews the “big three” trees were the vine, the fig, and the olive. People ate olive fruits, but more importantly, they squeezed the oil from the fruits, and used it for cooking, for lamps, for rubbing on the body, for medicine, and in religion. Jacob poured olive oil on the stone where he saw a vision of angels, declaring it a holy place (Genesis 28:18). Moses, similarly, anointed the Tabernacle and its equipment with olive oil mixed with sweet-smelling resins (Exodus 40:9). Aaron and the priests who served in the Tabernacle were also anointed (Exodus 29:21).
Some types of wild olive grow in Africa, India, and Australia, but are not well-known. The so-called “African olive” produces a black, oil-bearing fruit much like an olive. It is common as a snack in northern Nigeria. The “Chinese olive” is also a species of Canarium and may be a possible cultural substitute, if it produces edible fruit and oil. The “Russian olive” grown in dry regions of the world is a member of the Elaeagnus family and not a true olive. A variety of olive (Olea cuspidate) is used for building in India and Nepal, but it is probably not possible to use it in the Bible except perhaps in a study Bible where you could say that the biblical olive was related to this tree.
Since most of the kinds of olive trees in the world do not have edible fruit, it may not be possible to substitute a local variety. If it is done, however, a footnote would be required saying that the Palestinian kind produced edible fruit and oil. If a variety of Canarium is eaten in your area, you could use the local name for it. Otherwise transliterate from a major language.
Source: Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)
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 usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme are (され) is affixed on the verb as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. This is particularly done with verbs that have God as the agent to show a deep sense of reverence. Here, tsukawas-are-ru (遣わされる) or “send” is used.
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Exegesis:
kai egeneto ‘and it happened,’ cf. on 1.8.
hōs ēggisen eis Bēthphagē kai Bēthania ‘when he approached Bethphage and Bethany,’ two villages on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives.
pros to oros to kaloumenon Elaion ‘at the mountain called (Mount) of Olives,’ or, with different accentuation of Elaiōn (cf. Nestle), ‘Olive-grove’ (hence Revised Standard Version‘s “Olivet”), preferably the former. The phrase pros to oros is directly dependent on ēggisen and hence parallel to eis Bēthphagē kai Bēthania.
(V. 30) hupagete eis tēn katenanti kōmēn ‘go to the village opposite (you).’ For hupagō cf. on 8.42.
katenanti adverb ‘opposite,’ here used as an adjective with a noun.
en hē eisporeuomenoi heurēsete ‘in which you will find when you enter,’ taking en hē with heurēsete.
heurēsete pōlon dedemenon ‘you will find a colt tethered, or, tied up,’ preferably the latter.
pōlos ‘colt (of a horse),’ or ‘foal of an ass,’ or, in a more general meaning, ‘young animal.’ Though the exact meaning is difficult to ascertain, the first of the above interpretations appears preferable.
eph’ hon oudeis pōpote anthrōpōn ekathisen ‘on which no one has ever sat (with the purpose of riding it),’ hence ‘which no one has ever ridden.’
kai lusantes auton agagete ‘and, after you have untied it, bring it.’ kai connects the future heurēsete ‘you will find’ and the imperative agagete. lusantes has also the force of an imperative.
Translation:
Draw near, see on 7.12.
At the mount that is called Olivet, preferably, ‘to the mount (or, hill, or, place) called the Mount of Olives,’ the phrase “of Olives” characterizing the mountain or hill as a place well known for its olive trees. The rendering of this geographic name is sometimes a transliteration of the form used in the language of prestige in the area, cf. e.g. Olèfbergi in Sranan Tongo, but often it is some kind of translation, cf. ‘(the mount) of the olive-trees’ (Bible de Jérusalem), ‘the hill with the oil-trees’ (Tae’). In predominantly Muslim countries it may be better not to use a term built on the borrowing ‘olive,’ but on the borrowing zaitūn, the Arabic name for this fruit and its tree.
(V. 30) Opposite, or, “that lies in front of you” (An American Translation), ‘there before us’ (Leyden).
Where on entering you will find a colt tied, usually better a new sentence, ‘when you enter (it) you will come upon (or, you will see there) a colt that is tied.’ For find cf. on 7.10. A colt. Where horses are unknown, one may use a descriptive rendering, e.g. ‘a young riding-animal,’ or a borrowed term with or without classifier. Tied, or, ‘that is (or, is standing) tied up.’ The term used in some Indonesian languages refers to the pole or post to which the animal is tied up, e.g. Balinese (lit. ‘having-a-post’).
On which no one has ever yet sat, or, ‘no one has ever used it yet to ride upon.’
Untie it, or, ‘untie (or, make loose) its rope’ (Bahasa Indonesia).
Bring, sometimes a specific term, e.g. for leading an animal by a rope (Tae’ 1933).
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
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