The name that is transliterated as “Joseph” in English is translated in Finnish Sign Language with the sign signifying “woodworker” (referring to Mark 6:3). (Source: Tarja Sandholm)
“Only qualified, trained leaders know the dharma (truth) yet Jesus made claims that threatened the establishment. He is being chased out of the temple because his people thought him merely a carpenter. They intended to throw him down the cliff but he just passed by.”
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 4:22:
Noongar: “All the people thought well of him. They were surprised because of his excellent words. They said, ‘He is Joseph’s son, isn’t he?'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “All of them who heard him were surprised, they said: ‘His speech is very good! No kidding his clearness! Yet he is just Yusuf’s child!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “The people in the prayer-house really liked Isa. They wondered because he was an expert in speaking. They spoke together they said, ‘Is he not the son of Yusup?'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then those people who were gathered there, they were impressed by His teaching. But they were very much surprised, because He really knew how to interpret. And they said, ‘Isn’t this just that son of Joseph?'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “All the people praised/honored him and they were amazed at the pleasing things-that-he-said. But simultaneously they said, ‘This-one is certainly the child of Jose, is it not so?'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “He was spoken well of by the crowd and they were amazed at the good/nice things he was saying. However they were saying, ‘Isn’t it so that this is the son of Jose and spouse?'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
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 4:16-30:
Jesus — now a grown man — returned one day
to his hometown of Nazareth,
where he attended synagogue on a Sabbath.
He was handed a Bible and instructed to read from Isaiah:
The Spirit of the Lord has descended upon me
and has chosen me to proclaim great news for the poor,
to set prisoners free, to heal blindness and suffering,
and to announce this is the Lord’s chosen time.
Jesus closed the Bible and handed it to the leader,
then sat down, and with everyone staring at him, said,
“These words have all come true today.”
Though completely amazed at the teaching of Jesus,
the entire congregation was puzzled and questioned,
“Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”
So Jesus responded:
“You think I’m really the one in need of help,
and you challenge me to work in my own hometown
the same miracles you heard I worked in Capernaum.
Need I remind you — prophets are rejected at home!
“During the time of Elijah the prophet,
there was a drought for three years,
and people were starving everywhere.
But God sent Elijah to help only a foreign widow.
“During the time of Elisha the prophet,
many men in our nation suffered from leprosy,
but God healed only Naaman, who lived in Syria.”
At this, everyone in the synagogue became furious.
They threw Jesus out of their town,
dragged him to the edge of a cliff,
and started to throw him down from there.
But Jesus slipped through the crowd and disappeared.
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
kai pantes emarturoun autō lit. ‘and all bore witness for him.’
martureō with dative ‘to bear witness to’ (cf. Jn. 3.26), may here mean either ‘to speak well of’ (cf. Revised Standard Version, Translator’s New Testament, An American Translation, more freely also New English Bible, Williams), or ‘to approve of’ (Brouwer, cf. “to be well impressed with”, Good News Translation). The latter is preferable.
epi tois logois tēs charitos tois ekporeuomenois ek tou stomatos autou ‘at the words of grace coming from his mouth.’ charis is best understood as ‘graciousness.’ tēs charitos is a genitive of quality. tois ekporeuomenois ek tou stomatos autou ‘coming from his mouth’ reflects common usage in the Septuagint, cf. e.g. Num. 32.24; Deut. 8.3 (quoted in Mt. 4.4). The idiom seems to imply that the words spoken are, as it were, a part of the speaker, revealing what is in him, or binding him to the word he has spoken. Here the words that came from Jesus’ mouth are representative of his personality.
kai elegon ‘and they said,’ iterative imperfect.
ouchi huios estin Iōsēph houtos ‘is not this Joseph’s son?’ This question expresses either astonishment at the fact that Joseph’s son had become such a fine preacher or indignation at his presumption of speaking as a prophet, probably both. houtos may express contempt or amazement.
ouchi as an interrogative particle indicates that an affirmative answer is expected.
Translation:
Spoke well of him, preferably, ‘expressed their approval of him,’ ‘said, “he is right!”, or, “His words are true!” ’
Wondered at, see on 1.21.
Gracious words, or, “winning words” (An American Translation), ‘sweet words’ (Malay); or ‘the loveliness (lit. fragrance), or, the eloquence (lit. smoothness) of his words’ (Javanese, Balinese), ‘how graciously he spoke.’
In some cases the clause which proceeded out of his mouth can be rendered rather literally, e.g. in Tboli, which has, ‘they were all completely absorbed in the things-told which dropped from his mouth.’ In several receptor languages, however, idiom and/or decodability require another rendering, such as ‘which fell/came from his lips,’ ‘which flowed from in his mouth’ (Pohnpeian), ‘that he uttered/spoke.’ Neither the literal nor the other renderings express the specific shade of meaning discussed in Exegesis. This does not mean a serious loss of information here, since the context makes it clear that the words were taken to be characteristic of Jesus’ personality.
Is not this Joseph’s son. If the receptor language cannot use an interrogative sentence in this sense, an affirmative sentence must express the astonishment or indignation of the speakers, e.g. ‘and he merely is J’s son,’ or, ‘this fellow is nothing more than a son of J..’
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.
All spoke well of Him: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as spoke well indicates here that the people expressed approval of Jesus. They were impressed by what he said. All the people in the synagogue said good things about his teaching. Another way to translate this is:
They were all well impressed with him (Good News Translation)
4:22b
marveled: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as marveled also means “were amazed” or “admired.” Another way to translate this is:
wondered (Revised Standard Version)
This word also occurs at 2:18.
the gracious words that came from His lips: Here are some other ways to translate the phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as the gracious words that came from His lips:
the wonderful things he said (Contemporary English Version) -or-
the eloquent words that he spoke (Good News Translation)
gracious: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as gracious means “appealing, attractive, wonderful, beautiful.”
came from His lips: The phrase came from His lips is literally “coming out from his mouth.” This is an idiom. It simply means “he said/spoke.” Unless you have a similar idiom in your language, you should not use the word for “mouth” or “lips” in your translation.
4:22c
Isn’t this the son of Joseph?: This is a rhetorical question. It expresses surprise and amazement. The people were incredulous. This was Jesus’ hometown, and people there had known him for many years. The rhetorical question reflects their incredulity. He was so familiar to them that they were not willing to accept that he could be the fulfillment of this prophecy. You may want to express this in a footnote in your translation.
The people assumed that the answer to their question was “yes.” The people in the synagogue had seen Jesus grow up in their town. They found it difficult to accept that Jesus, whom they thought they knew well, spoke as well he did.
Some ways to translate this are:
• As a rhetorical question. For example:
Isn’t he Joseph’s son? -or-
This is Joseph’s son?
• As a statement. For example:
This is ⌊just⌋ Joseph’s son. -or-
This is Joseph’s son! ⌊We have known him for years⌋.
Use the form that is most natural in your language for this kind of amazement.
they asked: In Greek, the verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates as they asked occurs before the rhetorical question. The Berean Standard Bible has placed the words they asked after the question. Place them where it is natural in your language.
asked: In some languages, it may be more natural to use a verb other than asked to introduce a rhetorical question. Do not use a word that only introduces questions that require an answer.
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