“one storey of growing” (using a term also denoting a storey or floor of a building) in Highland Totonac (source for this and one above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
The Greek that is often translated in English as “truly, truly, I tell you” or similar is translated in the Russian BTI translation (publ. 2015) as Поверьте Мне (Pover’te Mne) or “trust me.” (Source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Retrotraducciones en español (haga clic o pulse aquí)
Jesús dijo: “Cuando ven un árbol brotando hojas verdes las personas que lo ven saben que el próximo día será caloroso, esto es parecido a las cinco puntos que les conté ahorita.
Cuando en el futuro las personas vean estas cinco cosas sabrán por cierto que el Hijo de Hombre está por venir.
Les advierto: Estas personas todavía no habrán muerto pero aún estarán vivos cuando lo vean con sus propios ojos. En el futuro el cielo y la tierra desaparecerán, pero mis palabras jamás desaparecen.
Les advierto: Todas las personas no saben cuando será el día o a qué hora venga, en la misma manera los ángeles y el Hijo de Hombre, todos no saben.
El único que sabe es el Padre Dios. Uds presten atención y vigilen para cuando venga, porque no lo saben.
Por ejemplo: Un hombre es dueño de una casa, y llama a todos sus siervos a que vengan y dice: “Yo me voy de viaje, uds trabajen, tú eres encargado de vigilar la puerta” y el hombre se va.
Ellos deben vigilar para cuando venga el dueño, no saben a qué hora si será en la mañana, tarde, noche o madrugada. Si ellos duermen de repente vendrá el dueño y los verá durmiendo ¿cómo sería eso?
Yo les advierto: En la misma manera todas las personas deben prestar atención y vigilar.”
Jesus said: “When you see a tree that sprouts forth green leaves, the people who see it know that the next day will be hot, it is similar with the five things I told you just now.
“When in the future the people will see these five things they will know for sure that the Son of Man is about to come down.
“I warn you: These people will not have died yet, but will still be alive when they see it with their own eyes. In the future the heaven and the earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.
“I warn you: All the people do not know the day or the hour that he comes, in the same way the angels and the Son of Man all do not know.
“The only one who knows is God the Father. You must pay attention and keep watch for when he comes, because you don’t know.
“For example: A man is owner of a house and he calls all the servants to come and says: ‘I am going on a journey, you all need to work, I entrust you (one particular person) with keeping watch over the door,’ and the man goes off.
“They must keep watch for when the owner comes, they do not know at which house, morning, afternoon, evening or before sunrise. If they fall asleep the owner will suddenly come and see them sleeping, how would that be?
“I warn you: In the same way all the people need to pay attention and keep watch.”
— Look, there is a tree called “fig.” It has branches. On the branches are buds. From the bud grows a leaf. When you see this, you understand that summer is coming soon. In the same way, when you see that these terrible events that I predicted are beginning to come true, know that the Son of Man will soon descend from heaven to earth. I tell you for sure that people living now will see all these events with their own eyes.
I also tell you that the whole earth will disappear, but my word is forever, it will never disappear.
Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):
Иисус сказал ученикам:
— Смотрите, вот дерево, которое называется «инжир». У него есть ветки. На ветках почки. Из почки вырастает лист. Когда вы видите это, вы понимаете, что скоро наступит лето. Точно так же, когда вы увидите, что эти страшные события, которые я предсказывал, начинают сбываться, знайте, что скоро спуститься с небес на землю Сын Человеческий. Точно говорю вам, что ныне живущие люди своими глазами увидят все эти события.
Еще говорю вам, что вся земля исчезнет, но мое слово навеки, оно не когда не исчезнет.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 13:30:
Uma: “Indeed I tell you: all those previous things will happen before all the people who are alive at this time die.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Truly I tell you,’ said Isa, ‘not all people who live today will have died, when this that I have said will already arrive.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Remember this I am saying to you: when you see all these things being fulfilled, you will not all die before they will all be fulfilled.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “This that I tell you is true that some of the people who are here today/now will still be living when all that I have said is fulfilled.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “This really is the truth, that this nation of people won’t be wiped out before all this has been fulfilled.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.
In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.
Click or tap here to see the rest of this insight.
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 choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
For amēn ‘truly’ cf. 3.28; ou mē emphatic ‘in no way’ cf. 9.1 (in ch. 13 cf. vv. 2 (twice), 19).
ou mē parelthē hē genea hautē ‘this generation will not in any way pass away,’ i.e. ‘this generation will assuredly be alive.’ This saying is of the same kind as 9.1, and, like that one, nothing is to be inferred here as to when this generation ‘will pass away’: the emphasis here lies on the fact that ‘all these things will happen’ during the lifetime of this generation.
parerchomai (cf. 6.48) ‘pass by,’ ‘pass away’: here in the sense of ‘disappear,’ ‘come to an end.’
hē genea hautē (cf. 8.12) ‘this generation’: the obvious meaning of the words ‘this generation’ is the people contemporary with Jesus. Nothing can be gained by trying to take the word in any sense other than its normal one: in Mark (elsewhere in 8.12; 9.19) the word always has this meaning (cf. Lagrange).
mechris hou (only here in Mark) ‘until,’ ‘until which time’: a succinct way of saying mechris ekeinou tou chronou en hō ‘until that time in which.’
tauta panta ‘all these things’: in the context this can only refer to all the events described in the discourse. (Notice that tauta ‘these things’ of v. 29, and tauta panta ‘all these things’ of v. 30, correspond to the tauta and tauta … panta of the disciples’ question in v. 4.)
Translation:
For truly employed in this type of construction and for generation see 8.12. By far the most common translation of generation in this passage is ‘those living now’ or ‘people who are now alive.’
Pass away cannot be translated literally in most languages. The closest equivalent is generally ‘die,’ but if a term parallel to the use of pass away in the following verse can be employed, this should be done.
Take place is translatable as ‘occur,’ ‘happen,’ or ‘become’ (Greek genetai), often in the future tense or its equivalent, since these events followed the statement of Jesus.
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 .
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