give thanks

The Greek that is translated as “give thanks” in English is Tzotzil as “saying to God: Because of you.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

this is my body

The Greek that is translated as “this is my body” or similar in English is translated in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) with das bin ich or “this is me.” They explain (p. 102): “Literally: ‘This is my body for you.’ For Paul, ‘body’ does not refer to the corporeal body and certainly not to the corpse hanging on the cross. Rather, ‘body’ stands for the sum of a person’s social contacts.”

In 1 Corinthians 11:24 the phrase that is translated in English as “this is my body that is (or: “broken”) for you” is translated by Berger / Nord as “this is me and I am there for you.”

Scriptures Plain & Simple (Luke 22:14-23)

Barclay Newman, a translator on the teams for both the Good News Bible and the Contemporary English Version, translated passages of the New Testament into English and published them in 2014, “in a publication brief enough to be non-threatening, yet long enough to be taken seriously, and interesting enough to appeal to believers and un-believers alike.” The following is the translation of Luke 22:14-23:

The time had now come to slaughter lambs for Passover,
so Jesus sent Peter and John
       to make preparations for the meal.

“Where do you want us to do this?” they asked.

Jesus replied:
       “As you enter the city, you’ll meet a man
              carrying a jug of water.
       Follow him into the house and say to the owner,
              ‘Our teacher sent us to find out where he can eat
              the Passover meal with his closest friends.’
       The owner will take you upstairs and show you
              a large room ready for you to use.
       Prepare the meal there.”

Peter and John left, and they found everything
precisely as Jesus had indicated,
       so they did exactly as he had instructed.

When it was supper time, Jesus said,
“I’ve really wanted to eat this Passover meal
       with you before I suffer.
It will be the last one I eat
before the Celebration Supper
       in the Ultimate Kingdom.”

Jesus took a cup of wine in his hands,
and after giving thanks to God, he said,
       “Take this wine and share it with each other.
I’ll drink no more wine before the Celebration Supper
       in the Ultimate Kingdom.”

Jesus then took some bread in his hands,
and after giving thanks to God,
       he broke the bread and passed it around.
Then he said, “This is my body offered for you.
       Eat this and remember me!”

After the meal, Jesus took another cup of wine
in his hands and said, “This is my blood
       poured out for you, and with it
       God makes his new agreement.
Here at the table is the one who will betray me!
I’ll die as God intends,
       but it will be terrible for my betrayer.”

The followers started arguing
       about who would do such a thing.

complete verse (Luke 22:19)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 22:19:

  • Noongar: “Then Jesus got a loaf of bread, thanked God, broke the bread , and he gave the bread to them, saying, ‘This is my body. It is given for you. Do this to remember me.'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “After that, he took bread, and after he said thank you to the Lord god, he broke-it-in-pieces and he offered it to them, he said: ‘This bread that I offer to you, this is my body [[that I offer to redeem you. Do this custom in order to remember me.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then, he took bread and after he had given thanks to God he broke it (in pieces) and gave it to them. He said, ‘This bread is my body which I submit/surrender because of you. Do this so that you will always remember me.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then Jesus took some bread and he thanked God for it, and he broke it and he handed it out to them and said, ‘This is my body which is used to redeem you; when you eat this, you think about me.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Then he also took the bread and thanked God. After that he broke-it-repeatedly-into-pieces and gave it to them saying, ‘This is my body which is/will-be-offered for you. Do this in order to thereby-remember me.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “And then Jesus picked up bread. After he had given thanks to God, he divided/broke it and then gave it to his disciples. He said, ‘As for this, this is my body which will be made a sacrifice by which you can be saved/freed. Do this always/often remembering my death.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

the last supper (image)

Click here to see the image in higher resolution.

Willy Wiedmann, the artist, commented on this picture: “In spite of some difficulty, and unlike Leonardo da Vinci [see here ] I did not set my last supper in a theatrical scene with Jesus in the center behind an elongated table with all the disciples, with two at each end so that that there are 11 seated behind the table. And not like the panel by Juan de Juanes (1623-79) [see here ] in which the six disciples left and right are very dynamic figures. And also not like Martin Schongauer’s Last Supper [see here ] with a slightly shorter table (also incidentally very similar to Juanes in the attitudes of the figures) and two figures seen from the back in the foreground of the panel. Instead I have given the Master the middle place to the foreground, with his back to us to finally leave the controversial Jesus-existential questions unanswered. Slightly symbolically it means that he is leaving his world. The iris color is meant to transfer the rainbow to Jesus, that God once linked to Noah (my kingdom is not of this world). I attempted to present answers that correspond to the characters of each individual.”

Image and text taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

For other images of Willy Wiedmann paintings in TIPs, see here.

 

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China.

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:

Beginning of the Holy Communion
You have this as food and this is my body.

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.

 

Acrylic on canvas painting by Hanna-Cheriyan Varghese, used with permission by the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) at Princeton Theological Seminary. You can purchase this and many other artworks by artists in residence at the OSMC in high resolution and without a watermark via the OSMC website .

“Hanna-Cheriyan Varghese (1938 – 2009) of Selangor, Malaysia, was the artist in residence at OMSC for the 2006–2007 academic year. She was born to Christian parents, and she remembered her mother taking her to a different worship service every week: ‘My parents encouraged me to attend different churches so that my siblings and I would appreciate the liturgy and traditions of the Christian believers of different denominations. Christians are a minority in Malaysia so we continue to struggle for our identity in a Muslim society. There is no open conflict as such.’

“She always had a passion for painting and drawing. She worked in the mediums of acrylic paint and Batik dye.

“‘All creative work, be it the spoken word, the written word or the sung word, are essentials in praise and worship, meditation, education, inculturation and evangelism. This also includes art and pictures, which is universal seeing.’ Hanna Varghese.” (Source )

See also the last supper (icon) and We All are One in Christ.

the last supper (icon)

Following is a contemporary Ukrainian Orthodox icon of the last supper by Ulyana Tomkevych.

 

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 )

Honorary "are" construct denoting God ("say")

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 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, iw-are-ru (言われる) or “say” is used.

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