years (age)

In Aekyom, years are counted as “turtles” (ambum).

Norm Mundhenk tells this story:

“Recently I was checking some New Testament material in the Aekyom language of western Papua New Guinea. It seemed relatively clear until suddenly we came to a passage that started, ‘When Jesus had 12 turtles, …’ Surely I had misunderstood what they said.
“‘Did you say that Jesus had 12 turtles?’
“‘Let us explain! Around here there is a certain time every year when river turtles come up on the banks and lay their eggs. Because this is so regular, it can be used as a way of counting years. Someone’s age is said to be how many turtles that person has. So when we say that Jesus had 12 turtles, we mean that Jesus was 12 years old.’
“It was of course the familiar story of Jesus’ trip with his parents to Jerusalem. And certainly, as we all know, Jesus did indeed have 12 turtles at that time!”

In Tok Pisin, krismas (derived from “christmas”) is taken as the fixed annual marker, so Jesus had 12 “christmases” (Jisas i gat 12-pela krismas pinis) or Abram (in Gen. 12:4) had 75 (Abram i gat 75 krismas) (source: Norm Mundhenk). In Noongar it is biroka kadak or “summers had” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

See also advanced in years.

complete verse (Luke 8:42)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 8:42:

  • Noongar: “because his only daughter was dying. She was twelve years old. Jesus walked along the road and many people followed him.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “Because there-was his only female child, her age was twelve years, [she was] sick near death. Yesus really went with him. While they were walking going to the house of Yairus, the many people crowded around crowding-around Yesus.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “For he had an only girl-child, whose life was twelve years, who was very sick and was about to die. Isa came along with him. While they were going there Isa was pressed already by the crowds of people who were following him.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “for he had an only child, a young girl of twelve years old, and this one was sick and about to die. And Jesus went with him, and while they were walking, they were making their way with difficulty because very, very many people were crowding upon them there.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “because their only female child who was twelve years old was dying. While Jesus was walking to go there, the many-people excessively crowded-around him.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “He was asking help from Jesus because of his only child who was a girl of twelve years of age, for her illness couldn’t get any worse. Without anything further, Jesus went with him, but he couldn’t stride because the people were pressing-together who were going along with him.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

pronoun for "God"

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 ta (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential ta (祂) is used.”

In Kouya, Godié, Northern Grebo, Eastern Krahn, Western Krahn, and Guiberoua Béte, all languages of the Kru family in Western Africa, a different kind of systems of pronouns is used (click or tap here to read more):

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 <em>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 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, but most translations, especially those published in the 21st century, 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. ).

See also first person pronoun referring to God.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Gender of God .

Translation: Chinese

在现代汉语中,第三人称单数代词的读音都是一样的(tā),但是写法并不一样,取决于性别以及是否有生命,即男性为“他”,女性为“她”,动物、植物和无生命事物为“它”(在香港和台湾的汉语使用,动物则为“牠”)。这些字的部首偏旁表明了性别(男人、女人、动物、无生命事物),而另一偏旁通常旁提示发音。

到1930年为止,基督教新教《圣经》经过整整一百年的翻译已经拥有了十几个译本,当时的一位圣经翻译者王元德新造了一个“神圣的”代词“祂”,偏旁“礻”表示神明。一般汉语读者会立即知道这字的发音是tā,而这个偏旁表示属灵的事物,因此他们明白这个字指出,三位一体的所有位格都没有性别之分,而单单是上帝。

然而,最重要的新教圣经译本(1919年的《和合本》)和天主教圣经译本(1968年的《思高圣经》)都没有采用“祂”;虽然如此,许多其他的圣经译本采用了这个字,另外还广泛出现在赞美诗和其他基督信仰的书刊中。(资料来源:Zetzsche)

《吕振中译本》的几个早期版本也使用“祂”来指称“上帝”;这个译本的《新约》于1946年译成,整部《圣经》于1970年完成。克拉默斯(Kramers)指出:“‘他’的这种新写法(即‘祂’)产生了一个小问题,就是在指称耶稣的时候,是否一律使用这个敬语代词?《吕振中译本》遵循的原则是,在称呼耶稣这个人的时候,用一般的‘他’,而在称呼耶稣神性的时候,特别是升天之后的耶稣,则用尊称‘祂’。”

Translator: Simon Wong

Honorary are / rare constructs denoting God (“go out”)

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 show different degree of politeness is through the usage of an honorific construction where the morphemes rare (られ) or are (され) are 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, dekake-rare-ru (出かけられる) or “go out” is used.

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

Translation commentary on Luke 8:41 – 8:42

Exegesis:

kai idou lit. ‘and behold,’ cf. on 1.20.

kai houtos archōn tēs sunagōgēs hupērchen ‘and he was leader of the synagogue,’ or archisunagōgos (cf. on v. 49). The article tēs before sunagōgēs suggests that the reference is to the one local synagogue. Syntactically the clause is best understood as a free continuation of the (nominal) relative clause hō onoma Iairos ‘whose name was Jairus.’ For huparchō cf. on 7.25.

pesōn para tous podas tou Iēsou ‘falling at Jesus’ feet.’ Semantically there is no difference between this phrase (also 17.16 where epi prosōpon ‘on his face’ is added) and prospiptein with dative (cf. 5.8; 8.28, 47), ‘to fall down before.’ In both phrases it is implied that the face touches the ground before the feet of the other person involved.

parekalei auton eiselthein eis ton oikon autou ‘he begged him to come to his house.’ For parakaleō cf. on 3.18.

(V. 42a) hoti thugatēr monogenēs ēn autō hōs etōn dōdeka kai autē apethnēsken ‘for he had an only daughter of about twelve years and she was dying,’ explaining Jairus’ request. Syntactically the two clauses are co-ordinate but semantically the second clause is the most important, to which the first one is subordinate. monogenēs implies that the girl was an only child (cf. on 7.12 and Phillips). apethnēsken means that she was about to die.

Translation:

Ruler of the synagogue, or, ‘one who directed the affairs of the synagogue,’ ‘the head/chief of the s.’ (Sundanese, Sranan Tongo). Where synagogue has been rendered as ‘mosque’ a term denoting a comparable Muslim official has been used, e.g. in Malay.

Falling at Jesus’ feet, cf. on “he fell down at Jesus’ knees” in 5.8.

Besought him to come to his house. One or both pronouns may have to be specified. For to beseech cf. on 5.12; Tboli shifts to direct discourse, ‘appealed to Jesus, he said, “Would you call-in as-a-favour-to me at my house” .’

(V. 42a) Changing the sentence structure in agreement with its semantic value one may say, “for his daughter, an only child about twelve years old, was dying” (Phillips, similarly e.g. in Javanese), or, ‘because his daughter was dying. She was his only child, about twelve years old.’

He had an only daughter may have to be described, cf. e.g. ‘his daughter, he had no other child (or, no child but her)’; cf. also on 7.12.

Was dying is variously rendered, ‘was nearly dead, or, near to dying’ (Bahasa Indonesia), ‘very ill, about to die’ (Javanese), ‘was (already) in her death agony’ (Shona), ‘already unconscious’ (Tboli), ‘will only die (i.e. she cannot but die)’ (Toraja-Sa’dan). Words with the general meaning of ‘nearly,’ ‘almost,’ ‘about,’ have to be handled carefully in some languages (e.g. Kele, Balinese), because they may imply an awareness of the speaker that the event referred to, though dreaded, did not actually happen. Cf. also on “at the point of death” in 7.2.

Translation commentary on Luke 8:42b

Exegesis:

en de tō hupagein auton ‘as he was going.’

hupagō ‘to go,’ with the implication of going in a certain direction, here to the house of Jairus.

hoi ochloi sunepnigon auton ‘the crowds pressed hard on him.’ For sumpnigō cf. on v. 14. Here it has the connotation of almost crushing (cf. Translator’s New Testament) or, of (nearly) suffocating a person (cf. New English Bible), preferably the latter.

Translation:

As he went, or, ‘while he/Jesus went there.’

The people pressed round him, or such a rendering as, ‘his body came to be pressed/squeezed by the crowd’ (Javanese). The people, cf. on “the multitudes” in 3.7; the verb is a slightly stronger synonym of the one used in 5.1.

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.