Hand colored stencil print on washi by Sadao Watanabe (1979)
Image taken with permission from the SadaoHanga Catalogue where you can find many more images and information about Sadao Watanabe. For other images of Sadao Watanabe artworks in TIPs, see here.
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 Greek that is translated as “a multitude of the heavenly host” or similar in English is translated in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with eine unüberschaubare Schar von anderen Engeln or “a multitude of other angels as far as one can see.”
San Mateo del Mar Huave: “honor (Father God)” (source for this and three above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
In Dan a figurative expression for praising God is used: “push God’s horse.” “In the distant past people closely followed the horses ridden by chiefs, so ‘pushing’ them.” (Source: Don Slager)
“The low social status of these men is indicated by the fact that they are wearing only one piece of cloth, all that they own. They are men of different ages working out in the fields raising animals. No one usually visits them.”
Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )
Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
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) is used as in mi-tsukai (御使い) or “messenger (of God).” (Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 2:13:
Noongar: “Suddenly, many, many angels came down from Heaven. They stood near the other angel, singing and praising God.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “In the blinking of an eye, there appeared also many angels from heaven with the first angel. They praised God, they said:” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then immediately they saw beside the angel very many angels from heaven. They praised God, they said,” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And at that moment also appeared to them very many angels of God who were praising God,” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Exactly when he said that, many of his fellow angels suddenly-appeared from heaven praising God saying,” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Suddenly/unexpectedly the number of angels became many for a very large number arrived from heaven. They were praising God, saying,” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
