light

The Greek in Luke 2:32 that is translated in English as “light” is translated in Chol in a manner that distinguishes that Jesus is the instrument, not the object of the revelation.

gentiles / nations

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The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).

Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).

In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)

See also nations.

glory

Since Saint Lucian Creole French does not have one term for the Greek that is typically translated as “glory” in English, David Frank (in: Lexical Challenges in the St. Lucian Creole Bible Translation Project , 1998) gives examples on how varied that term is translated in its many mentions in Luke:

“The primary meaning of that Greek word is ‘bright, visible splendor.’ The same word has a variety of secondary and extended senses. Since there is not a well-understood Creole word for ‘glory’ and we had to translate it according to meaning, the renderings of ‘glory’ in Creole were diverse, as the following examples, all from the book of Luke, show:

  • Luke 2:9: èvèk klèté Bondyé té ka kléwé toupatou anlè yo (‘and God’s light was shining everywhere on them’)
  • Luke 2:14a: An syèl yo ka glowifyé Bondyé, yo ka di i gwan (‘In heaven they are praising God, they are saying he is great‘)
  • Luke 2:32b: èk i kay fè Izwayèl on plas pou moun konnèt (‘and he will make Israel a place for people to know‘)
  • Luke 4:6a: Mwen kay ba’w tout pouvwa èk wichès sé wéyòm sala (‘I will give you all power and riches of these kingdoms’)
  • Luke 9:26b: lè mwen kay vini an pouvwa mwen ka kléwé kon zéklè (‘when I will come in my power shining like lightning‘)
  • Luke 12:27b: pa menm Sòlomonn an tout wichès li ki té sa abiyé otan bèl kon yonn anpami yo (‘not even Solomon in all his riches was dressed as nice as one of them’)
  • Luke 14:10b: Sa kay ba’w lonnè wèspé an zyé lézòt sé moun-an (‘That will give you honor respect in the eyes of the other people’)
  • Luke 17:18: ki viwé di Bondyé mèsi (‘who returned to tell God thank you‘)
  • Luke 19:38b: Annou glowifyé Bondyé (‘Let’s praise God’)
  • Luke 21:27: épi pouvwa èk gwan klèté (‘with power and great light‘)
  • Luke 24:26: èk apwé sa i kay jwenn wèspé (‘and after that he will get respect‘)

See also the light of the knowledge of the glory of God.

complete verse (Luke 2:32)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 2:32:

  • Noongar: “You send the light, shining on all other people, the very great light for your people, Israel.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “This Redeemer is like light that makes-clear the hearts of people who are not the descendants of Israel. And he brings honor to us (excl.) the descendants of Israel who are your portion.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “He is figuratively the light that makes the other tribes see your wishes and because of him your people the tribe of Isra’il is honored.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “He is the one to illuminate the minds of those people who are not Jews, who do not know who You are, the true God. By means of him, we your chosen people, the descendants of Israel, will be praised.’ This is what Simeon said.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “He can be compared to a light that shows to the Gentil (Gentiles) the path that leads to you (sing.). Because of him moreover, your (sing.) people the descendants of Israel will be praised/honored.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “He will enlighten the nations who are not Judio concerning the path of salvation/freedom. And because of him, the praiseworthiness/glory will become big of us (excl.) Judio who are your people, the descendants of Israel.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Chichewa (interconfessional translation, 1999): “You have given this brightness to light up the way for people of other tribes, which will be the glory of your people Israel.” (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 157)

presentation in the temple

This is a contemporary tempera/gouache on leather painting by an unknown Ethiopian artist. Source: Sacred Art Pilgrim website .

Following is a painting by Chen Yuandu 陳緣督 (1902–1967):

Housed in the Société des Auxiliaires des Missions Collection – Whitworth University.

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

The following is a stained glass window from the Three choir windows in the Marienkirche, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany, of the 14th century:

Source: Der gläserne Schatz: Die Bilderbibel der St. Marienkirche in Frankfurt (Oder), Neuer Berlin Verlag, 2005, copyright for this image: Brandenburgisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologisches Landesmuseum

Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )

See also other stained glass windows from the Marienkirche in Frankfurt.

addressing God

Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.

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Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or modern 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.

In these verses, in which humans address God, the informal, familiar pronoun is used that communicates closeness.

Voinov notes that “in the Tuvan Bible, God is only addressed with the informal pronoun. No exceptions. An interesting thing about this is that I’ve heard new Tuvan believers praying with the formal form to God until they are corrected by other Christians who tell them that God is close to us so we should address him with the informal pronoun. As a result, the informal pronoun is the only one that is used in praying to God among the Tuvan church.”

In Gbaya, “a superior, whether father, uncle, or older brother, mother, aunt, or older sister, president, governor, or chief, is never addressed in the singular unless the speaker intends a deliberate insult. When addressing the superior face to face, the second person plural pronoun ɛ́nɛ́ or ‘you (pl.)’ is used, similar to the French usage of vous.

Accordingly, the translators of the current version of the Gbaya Bible chose to use the plural ɛ́nɛ́ to address God. There are a few exceptions. In Psalms 86:8, 97:9, and 138:1, God is addressed alongside other “gods,” and here the third person pronoun o is used to avoid confusion about who is being addressed. In several New Testament passages (Matthew 21:23, 26:68, 27:40, Mark 11:28, Luke 20:2, 23:37, as well as in Jesus’ interaction with Pilate and Jesus’ interaction with the Samaritan woman at the well) the less courteous form for Jesus is used to indicate ignorance of his position or mocking.” (Source Philip Noss)

In the most recent Manchu translation of 1835 (a revision of an earlier edition from 1822), God is never addressed with a pronoun but with “father” (ama /ᠠᠮᠠ) instead. Chengcheng Liu (in this post on the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Theology blog ) explains: “In Manchu tradition, as in Chinese etiquette, second-person pronouns could be considered disrespectful when speaking to superiors or spiritual beings. Manchu Shamanist prayers avoided si [‘you’] and sini [‘your’] for this very reason. To use them for God would be, in Lipovzoff’s [one of the two translators] words, ‘the most uncouth and indecent way to speak to the Almighty — as if He were a servant or slave.’ There was also a grammatical problem. In Manchu, si and sini could refer to both singular and plural subjects. For a faith that insisted on the singularity of God, this was potentially confusing. By contrast, repeating ama removed any ambiguity.”

In Dutch, Afrikaans, and Western Frisian translations, God is always addressed with the formal pronoun.

See also female second person singular pronoun in Psalms.

people (of God) (Japanese honorifics)

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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 to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) can be used, as in mi-sumai (御民) or “people (of God)” in the referenced verses.

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