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 22:23)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 22:23:

  • Noongar: “23 Then they began asking among themselves, ‘Which one of us could do this thing?'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “When his disciples heard that, they asked one another which of them would do like that.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then they asked-each-other as to who of them was planning to betray him.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then those disciples of his asked each other as to which one of them he was talking about who would turn him over.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Then they asked-each-other which of them perhaps would do that.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “When the disciples heard, they were-asking-one-another which of them would do like that.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

The Last Supper

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.

Following is a 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.

Following is an 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 )

Translation commentary on Luke 22:23

Exegesis:

kai autoi ērxanto suzētein pros heautous ‘and they began to discuss among themselves.’ kai autoi (not emphatic) indicates the change of subject. For archomai with infinitive cf. on 4.21. Here it refers implicitly to a reaction to the startling communication of Jesus in v. 21.

suzēteō (also 24.15) ‘to discuss,’ ‘to debate.’

to tis ara eiē ex autōn ‘as to who of them might be….’ The indirect question is made into a substantive by prefixing the article to (cf. on 1.62), and this substantive is the object of suzētein. For ara cf. on 1.66. ex autōn stands for the partitive genitive.

ho touto mellōn prassein ‘the one who was to do this.’ mellō with infinitive is somewhat more definite than the simple future.

Translation:

They began to question one another, cf. on “said to one another” in 4.36.

Would do this, or, ‘planned/intended to do thus’ (Bahasa Indonesia).

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.

SIL Translator’s Notes on Luke 22:23

22:23a–b

Then: In Greek this verse begins with the common conjunction that is often translated as “and.” It introduces the reaction of the apostles when Jesus said that one of them would betray him (22:21). The Berean Standard Bible and some other English versions translate this word as Then. In some languages it may be natural to begin it with an introductory phrase or clause. For example:

When his disciples heard that

Begin the verse in a natural way in your language.

they began to question among themselves which of them was going to do this: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as they began to question indicates that the apostles started discussing which of them would betray Jesus.

The Greek phrase which of them was going to do this is emphatic. In this context it implies that betraying Jesus was a terrible action. It was hard for them to imagine that one of them would do that. Try to express this feeling in a natural way in your language. Some ways to translate it in English are:

they began to discuss with each other who could do such a thing (God’s Word)
-or-
they began to question one another as to which of them it could possibly be who would do this (NET Bible)

In some languages it may be more natural to translate this verse as a direct quote. For example:

They started to ask one another, “Which of us could be the one who will do this?”

question: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as question means “to talk with,” “to speak with,” or “to converse” about something.

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