Translation commentary on Mark 10:6

Exegesis:

apo de archēs ktiseōs ‘but from the beginning of creation’: so most translations. Manson, however, translates: ‘From the beginning of the creation-story we learn that…’ (cf. Rawlinson).

archē (cf. 1.1) ‘beginning.’

ktisis (13.19; 16.15) ‘creation’: the meaning here may be (1) ‘the sum total of everything created, creation, world’ or (2) the act of creation (Swete). The use of the identical phrase in 13.19 (ap’ archēs ktiseōs) would favor the first meaning.

arsen kai thēlu epoiēsen autous ‘male and female he made them’: a quotation of Gen. 1.27 (cf. also Gen. 5.1). On the meaning of this passage, in the light of Jewish interpretation of it.

Translation:

For certain problems involved in translating beginning see 1.1. In many languages beginning can be translated only as an adverbial expression of time sequence, e.g. ‘when God first made the world’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave, South Bolivian Quechua) or as a verb of beginning, e.g. ‘when God began in creating the world.’

Creation indicates a process which is translatable in most languages only by a verb for ‘making’ and an object, for ‘the world’ or ‘everything.’ However, in some languages creation may be referred to in somewhat different ways, e.g. ‘when life began’ (Eastern Highland Otomi).

Them must usually be more specific, e.g. ‘people’ or ‘human beings.’

Male and female constitutes a generic phrase capable of including not only humans, but animals as well. In many languages, however, this type of classification is not possible. One may have to say, for example, ‘God made men and women,’ or as in Tzeltal ‘God made man with woman.’

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator's Notes on Mark 10:6

10:6

However: The Greek conjunction that the Berean Standard Bible translates as However indicates a contrast. The contrast is between the law that Moses wrote because of people’s stubbornness (10:5) and God’s original intention for people (10:6–9). Indicate this contrast in a natural way in your language.

from the beginning of creation:

Here are some other ways to translate this:

when God made the world (New Century Version)
-or-
at the beginning when God created everything

‘God made them male and female’: The Berean Standard Bible puts single quote marks around God made them male and female. This is because these words are a direct quote from the Greek translation of Genesis 1:27. If you usually put quote marks around a quote from the Old Testament, you may want to put quote marks around these words, as the Berean Standard Bible does. Another way to show that this is a quote from the Old Testament is to say:

It is written that God made them male and female.

Some versions do not indicate specifically that these are quotes, but they give the verse references in a footnote. You may want to give the Old Testament references in a footnote, whether or not you mark the quotes.

them: The pronoun them refers to the first human beings. Some ways to translate this are:

• Translate the pronoun them literally. If you do this, you may want to make explicit what them refers to. For example:

when God created the world, he created people and made them male and female

• Omit the pronoun them. For example, the Contemporary English Version says:

God made a man and a woman

© 2008 by SIL International®

Made available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License (CC BY-SA) creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

All Scripture quotations in this publication, unless otherwise indicated, are from The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible.
BSB is produced in cooperation with Bible Hub, Discovery Bible, OpenBible.com, and the Berean Bible Translation Committee.