Luke 7:14 – TIPs

young man

In the translation of Luke 7:14 into Purari, Jesus addresses the dead man as “younger brother.” (Source: David Clark)

touch

The Greek that is translated as “touch” in English is translated in the German translation by Fridolin Stier (1989) as “(touch and) hold on to” (festhalten).

The widow at Nain (image)

Hand colored stencil print on momigami by Sadao Watanabe (1973).

Image taken with permission from the SadaoHanga Catalogue where you can find many more images and information about Sadao Watanabe.

For other images of Sadao Watanabe art works in TIPs, see here.

Raising of the Son of the Widow of Nain

The following is a contemporary stained glass window by Jules Pierre Maumejean from the Cathédrale Saint-Spire de Corbeil-Essonnes in France:

Source: Art in the Christian Tradition , a project of the Vanderbilt University Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Original source: Wikimedia

Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )

complete verse (Luke 7:14)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 7:14:

Noongar: “Then Jesus walked close and touched the dead man’s bed. The men carrying him, they stopped. Jesus said, ‘Young man! Get up I tell you!'” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “He went and touched the stretcher, the people-carrying-the-stretcher paused. Yesus said: ‘Young man! I order you (sing.) to get up!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then he went closer and touched the stretcher so the people carrying it stopped. Then he said, ‘Friend, get up.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “He went up to that which they were carrying and He took hold of it and then those who were carrying that dead person stopped, and Jesus said to the one they were carrying, ‘Son, get up!'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Then he approached and laid-his-hands-on the coffin they were carrying so that the ones-carrying would stop. When they then stopped, he said to the dead-one, ‘Get-up child.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “He approached and touched the coffin and those carrying it stood-still. Jesus spoke saying, ‘Son, go ahead! Get up!'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Scriptures Plain & Simple (Luke 7:11-17)

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 7:11-17:

Jesus and his followers were on the way to the village of Nain,
       with a big crowd surrounding them.
As they approached the town gate,
       they saw a funeral procession —
a widow’s only son was being carried out for burial,
       and many of the village people were with her.
When Jesus saw the woman, he felt sorry for her and said,
       “You can stop crying now.”

Then he went over and touched the stretcher
on which the dead boy was lying.
The funeral procession came to a halt,
and Jesus said, “Young man, sit up!”
The boy sat up and started speaking.

“Here’s your son!” Jesus said to the widow.

Though everyone was frightened,
they praised God and exclaimed,
“A great prophet has now arrived!
God has come to save us all!”

News about Jesus spread everywhere.

Honorary "rare" construct denoting God ("touch")

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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, fure-rare-ru (触れられる) or “touch” is used.

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

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