29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
“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 4:29:
Uma: “They stood up, took him going out of the town, and they carried him going to the steep-place, because their town was on top of a hill. Their intention [particle of non-fulfilled intent] was to push him from the steep place so that he would die.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “They got up and pushed Isa and they brought him outside of the town onto a mountain on which their place was built in order to throw him down over a cliff.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “They stood up, and they grabbed Jesus, and they carried Him out to the cliff there on the brow of the hill that their village was placed on, because they wanted to throw Jesus off of the cliff.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Right after that they stood-up-as-a-group and dragged Jesus to remove him from their town. They pulled him taking him to the top (lit. head) of the mountain where their town was located in order to throw-him -down koma from the cliff.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “The crowd all stood up and they turned Jesus out, driving him out of the town. They took him to the edge of that hill on which that town was built, for hopefully they would cause-him -to-fall from the steep-edge.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
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 others 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: “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 Twents as well as the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In the latter two 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. ).
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.
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 anastantes exebalon … kai ēgagon lit. ‘and having risen they drove (him) out … and brought (him).’ Of the three acts referred to by these verbs the first is preparing for the other two. All three are due to their being filled with rage (v. 28). For anastantes cf. on 1.39 and 4.16; here it is used literally, since people used to sit down during the worship service (cf. IDB IV, 488f).
ekballō ‘to drive out (forcibly),’ ‘to send out (without force),’ here preferably the former.
exō tēs poleōs ‘out of town.’ exō ‘outside,’ here used as preposition.
heōs ophruos tou orous eph’ hou hē polis ōikodomēto autōn ‘to the, or a, brow of the hill on which their city was built.’ The exact place to which this description refers is not identified with certainty. But the two places that seem to be probable are 1 and 2 kilometres away from the town, cf. Grundmann. From the few remains of the old town it appears that Nazareth was not built on the top of the hill but on its slope (cf. IDB III, 525).
ophrus, ‘edge’ (of a cliff), ‘brow.’
hōste katakrēmnisai auton ‘in order to throw him down.’
hōste introduces clauses which indicate result, either actual, or intended, as here. In the latter meaning it is hardly to be distinguished from hina.
katakrēmnizō ‘to throw down from a cliff (Gr. krēmnos).’
Translation:
Put him out, preferably, ‘expelled him,’ ‘threw him out.’
Led him, or, in order to be in tune with the behaviour suggested by the preceding verb, ‘drove’ (Willibrord), ‘seized-under-the-arms (as done when one runs in a prisoner)’ (Javanese), ‘dragged’ (Toraja-Sa’dan).
City. The location of the city, mentioned in the next clause, may better be transposed to this part of the sentence, cf. ‘outside their city which was built on a hill. They led him as-far-as to edge-of the hill, place which straight-up-and-down…’ (Pohnpeian), .’.. outside of the town. Their town was built on a hill, and they brought him to the edge of this hill…’ (Cuyono; a comparable shift in Tboli).
Brow of the hill, i.e. projecting upper part of a steep place on, not necessarily on top of, the hill. For hill cf. 3.5.
Built. The reference is to the situation rather than to being built; hence, ‘the site of their city’ (Batak Toba), ‘(where) their city stood on’ (Trukese).
That they might throw him down headlong, or, ‘their intention (being), or, preparing to throw…,’ ‘they would have thrown…,’ To throw down headlong, preferably, “to throw down the cliff” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation), “to throw down from it” (An American Translation), ‘to push him over the edge’ (cf. Marathi).
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.
They got up: The Greek verb that the Berean Standard Bible translates here as got up has several senses. It can mean simply “stand up.” It can also refer to beginning an action or preparing for the action. In this context the people in the synagogue stood up, and they also began a hostile action against Jesus. Translate this in a natural way in your language for this context. See also the note on 1:39a where this verb is used of Mary preparing for her trip to see Elizabeth.
drove Him out of the town: The Greek clause that the Berean Standard Bible translates as drove Him out of the town is literally they “threw/cast him out of town.” This means that they “forced him to leave the town.” A crowd of people surrounded Jesus and forcibly took him with them out of the town.
Some other ways to translate this are:
forced him out of the town (NET Bible) -or-
threw him out of town (Contemporary English Version)
4:29b
led Him: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as led Him here uses the same verb that it translates as “led” in 4:9a.
Some other ways to translate this phrase are:
forced Jesus ⌊to go with them⌋ -or-
pushed him
to the brow of the hill on which the town was built: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as brow refers to the edge or top of a cliff. The town of Nazareth had been built on a hill. For example:
to the edge of the cliff on which the town was built (New Century Version)
4:29c
in order to throw Him over the cliff: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as throw…over the cliff implies that the people of Nazareth intended to kill Jesus. They intended to kill him by pushing him off the cliff. Some other ways to translate this are:
They meant to throw him over the cliff (Good News Translation) -or-
They intended to push him over the cliff (New Living Translation (2004))
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