Illustration by Annie Vallotton, copyright by Donald and Patricia Griggs of Griggs Educational Service. More images can be viewed at rotation.org .
The following is a church window based on another image of Annie Vallotton of the same scene. This is installed in a church of the Union des Églises Baptistes du Cameroun in Mowo (Mokong), Cameroon.
Photo and the following description by Ken Hollingsworth
“The windows are open with no screens or glass. The pictures were fabricated by projecting the picture using an overhead projector on a piece of plywood. They were drawn on the plywood with charcoal. Then the fabricator cut pieces of iron rebar to make the picture. Then the iron pieces were welded together. Later, when the pictures were installed, they were painted with different colors to help the people ‘see’ the picture.”
In Hindi a differentiation is made between the way that the different persons of the Trinity are addressed by a regular person or by another person of the Trinity. When Jesus addresses God the Father or when God the Father addresses Jesus, a familiar form of address is used, unlike the way that any of them would be addressed with a honorific (pl.) form by anyone else.
The Greek that is often translated in English as “he breathed his last” is translated with idioms that include “his life-force broke-off” (Indonesian, Balinese), “his breath stopped (or: was-exhausted” (Ekari, Sranan Tongo), or “his breath (and body) parted-with-each-other” (Toraja-Sa’dan). (Source: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
In the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) it is idiomatically translated with er hauchte sein Leben aus or “he breathed out his life.”
The Greek that is typically translated as “spirit” in English is translated in Warao as “obojona.” Obojona is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions.” (Source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. )
The Hebrew, Latin and Greek that is translated as “with a loud voice” in English is translated in Low German idiomatically as luuthals or “loud-throated” (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 23:46:
Noongar: “Jesus cried out loudly, ‘Father! I put my spirit into your hands!’ He said this and he died.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “After that, Yesus shouted loudly, saying: ‘My Father, I offer my spirit into your (sing.) hands!’ After he spoke like that, he died [lit., his breath broke].” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then Isa called loud, he said, ‘O Father, I give my soul into your holding/power.’ When he had said this, his breath snapped (euphemism for death).” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then Jesus shouted out saying, ‘Father, I’m letting you take hold of my soul.’ And that was that, and his breath left him.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Jesus raised his voice saying, ‘Father, I entrust my spirit to you (sing.).’ He said that, then died.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Jesus called out, saying, ‘Father, I commit/hand-over my spirit to you now.’ Straight away he then released (lit. caused-to-spring-out, fig.) it.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Translators of different languages have found different ways with what kind of formality God is addressed.
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 Translator2002, 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.”
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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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morpheme rare (られ) 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, to-rare-ru (取られる) or “take” is used.
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