ἀπήγγειλαν δὲ αὐτοῖς οἱ ἰδόντες πῶς ἐσώθη ὁ δαιμονισθείς.
36Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.
“In Thai society, those who are possessed by evil spirits are usually the weak or mentally unstable. This man is shown as freed from his spiritual and physical chains. Even though he is naked Jesus is not ashamed to be close to him.”
Drawing by Sawai Chinnawong who employs northern and central Thailand’s popular distinctive artistic style originally used to depict Buddhist moral principles and other religious themes; explanation by Paul DeNeui. From That Man Who Came to Save Us by Sawai Chinnawong and Paul H. DeNeui, William Carey Library, 2010.
For more images by Sawai Chinnawong in TIPs see here.
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 8:36:
The Greek that is typically translated/transliterated in English as “demon” is translated by other languages in the following ways:
In the still widely-used 1908 Tswana (also: Setswana) translation (by Robert Moffat, revised by Alfred Wookey), the term badino or “ancestor spirit” is used for “demon,” even though in the traditional understanding there is nothing inherently negative associated with that term. Musa Dube (in: Journal of Society of New Testament 73, 1999, p. 33ff. ) describes this as an example of “engaging in the colonization of the minds of natives and for advancing European imperial spaces. The death and burial of Setswana culture here was primarily championed through the colonization of their language such that it no longer served the interests of the original speakers. Instead the written form of language had equated their cultural beliefs with evil spirits, demons and wizardry. This colonization of Setswana was in itself the planting of a colonial cultural bomb, meant to clear the ground for the implantation of a worldwide Christian commonwealth and European consciousness. It was a minefield that marked Setswana cultural spaces as dangerous death zones, to be avoided by every intelligent Motswana reader or hearer of the translated text.”
In Kachin, the term Nat (or nat) us used for “demon” (as well as “devil” and “unclean/evil spirit“). Like in Tswana, the meaning of Nat is not inherently negative but can be positive in the traditional Nat worship as well. Naw Din Dumdaw (in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 94ff.) argues that “the demonization of Nat created a social conflict between Kachin Christians and Kachin non-Christians. Kachin converts began to perceive their fellow Kachins who were still worshipping Nats as demonic and they wanted to distance themselves from them. Likewise, the Nat-worshiping Kachin community perceived the Kachin converts as betrayers and enemies of their own cultural heritage. (…) The demonization of the word Nat was not only the demonization of the pre-Christian religion but also the demonization of the cultural heritage of the Kachin people. When the word Nat is perceived as demonic, it creates an existential dilemma for Kachin Christians. It distances them from their cultural traditions.”
Note that often the words for “demon” and “unclean spirit / evil spirit” are being used interchangeably.
See also devil and formal pronoun: demons or Satan addressing Jesus.
Exegesis:
apēggeilan de autois hoi idontes ‘and those who had seen (it) told them.’ Because hoi idontes has no object it is sometimes rendered as a substantive (cf. “the spectators”, New English Bible, “eyewitnesses”, Translator’s New Testament).
pōs esōthē ho daimonistheis ‘how the man who had been possessed was cured,’ syntactically dependent upon apēggeilan. For sōzō cf. on 7.50.
daimonizomai ‘to be possessed by a demon.’
Translation:
The sentence structure may have to be changed, e.g. ‘those who had seen how he … was healed, told them this,’ or, ‘those who had seen the healing of the man…, told them, how Jesus had done so.’
Them may have to be specified, e.g. ‘those who came,’ “the others” (Phillips); for the same reason Javanese shifts to a passive form enabling the continuation of the subject of v. 35, ‘they were informed by those who had seen.’
How he who … was healed, or, ‘the way Jesus had healed the man who…’ (Balinese), ‘how he … became well’ (cf. Marathi).
He who had been possessed, rendering the Greek aorist participle by a relative verbal clause in the past tense; most versions investigated, however, use (one of) their normal term(s) for ‘the demoniac,’ not making explicit the past tense. Where this is stylistically preferable it usually is acceptable, since v. 35 precludes the possibility of misunderstanding.
Healed. The Greek verb used here is in other contexts rendered by ‘to save’ (for which see on 1.47), but in most languages idiom does not allow to preserve this formal identity.
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.
8:36a
Meanwhile: This verse begins with a Greek conjunction that is often translated as “and.” The Berean Standard Bible translates it as Meanwhile to indicate that people reported what Jesus had done while others were looking at the man who was healed. Connect 4:4a to 4:3b in a way that is natural in your language.
those who had seen it: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as those who had seen it refers to the people who had witnessed Jesus free the man from the demons. This could have included both the herdsmen and Jesus’ disciples. Since the text does not specify exactly who saw it, use a general expression. For example:
those who had seen what happened (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
Eyewitnesses (Revised English Bible)
reported: The Greek phrase that the Berean Standard Bible translates as reported is literally “reported to them.” The word “them” refers to the people who had come from the city and villages. These people had not seen the healing happen.
8:36b
the demon-possessed man: See how you translated the similar expressions at 8:27b and 8:35c–d. Use a natural expression to describe a man who is or was controlled by demons. If your expression is long, you might consider using a shorter expression to refer to the man here (and at 8:38a). For example:
the man
-or-
the healed/freed man
See demon in the Glossary.
healed: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as healed is the same word that is commonly used in the Bible to mean “saved, rescued.” It is often used in the spiritual sense of “saved from sins.” In this context, it clearly means “saved/rescued from the control of demons.” Use a word or expression that is natural in your language for this. It may be something like:
healed
-or-
delivered/freed
-or-
saved/rescued
If you have an expression that could be used for both “rescued from sins” and “rescued from demons,” consider using it here.
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