Text:

pantes ‘all’ in Textus Receptus is placed after ebaptizonto ‘all were baptized’: this reading, based on later mss., is rejected by modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

exeporeueto (6.11; 7.15, 19, 20, 21, 23; 10.17, 46; 11.19; 13.1) ‘was going out’: the imperfect stresses the continuous procession of people as they kept going out to hear John’s preaching and receive his baptism. The force of the preposition ek is, naturally, to go out of the Judean countryside and the city of Jerusalem to the Jordan where John was preaching and baptizing.

pasa hē Ioudaia chōra kai hoi Ierosolumitai pantes ‘all the region (of) Judea and all the citizens of Jerusalem.’

chōra (5.1, 10; 6.55) ‘country,’ ‘region,’ ‘land.’ The words pasa ‘all (the region of Judea)’ and pantes ‘all (the citizens of Jerusalem)’ are not intended literally (cf. similar expressions in 1.32, 33, 37; see also Mt. 2.3, 21.10; Lk. 7.29; Acts 21.30). The language describes forcefully and vividly the effect of John’s ministry upon many people from both the countryside and the city. Although possible in some contexts, pasa and pantes ‘all’ in this passage should not be taken in a qualitative sense (as is done by The Modern Speech New Testament: “people of all classes”).

ebaptizonto hup’ autou ‘were being baptized by him.’ The preposition hupo ‘by’ clearly shows that the verb is passive: the rite was not self-administered, as in the case in Jewish proselyte baptism, but was administered by John ‘the Baptizer.’ Again the imperfect of the verb stresses the continuity of the action: the people came, one by one, and were baptized by John.

baptizō (1.8, 9; 7.4; 10.38, 39; 16.16) ‘dip,’ ‘bathe,’ ‘immerse,’ ‘baptize’: used only in ritual sense in the N.T.: (1) of Jewish ritual ablution, Lk. 11.38 (and Mk. 7.4, if the true reading); (2) of John’s baptism and Christian baptism (all other occurrences of the verb not listed here); (3) figuratively, as a metaphor of suffering and martyrdom, Mk. 10.38-39, Lk. 12.50, and of Israel’s passage through the Red Sea, 1 Co. 10.2.

en tō Iordanē potamō ‘in the Jordan river’: the construction is parallel to hē Ioudaia chōra in which the proper name has the force of an adjective modifying the noun, i.e. ‘the Judean region,’ ‘the Jordanian river.’ The sense, however, is accurately represented by ‘Jordan river’ or ‘river Jordan.’

exomologoumenoi (only here in Mark) ‘as they were confessing.’ In the active form the verb means ‘promise,’ ‘consent,’ ‘agree’ (cf. Lk. 22.6); in the middle, ‘confess,’ ‘admit,’ ‘acknowledge’ (Moulton & Milligan give examples from the papyri for ‘acknowledge,’ ‘avow openly’ – see also Acts 19.18, Phil. 2.11). In the Septuagint the verb stands chiefly for yadah ‘confess,’ ‘praise.’ The present tense of the participle in the present passage, in its relation to the principal verb baptizō ‘baptize,’ shows clearly what is meant by John’s preaching: ‘a baptism of repentance for remission of sins.’ Those who repented and responded to his proclamation came to receive baptism at the hands of John: included in the performance of the rite was their confession of sins, in audible demonstration of their repentance, baptism being its visible representation, the purpose of all of which was the forgiveness granted by God to repentant sinners. Confession here is open confession: if an indirect object is to be supplied, it would naturally be God to whom confession of sins was made, presumably in a loud voice, and so heard by John.

Translation:

The use of the English expletive there in the construction there went out to him … is an attempt to reproduce the effect of the initial verb in the Greek text. However, in most languages it is necessary to use the more direct form, ‘all the country of Judea went out to him….’

On the other hand, it is frequently impossible to say ‘all the country (i.e. region) went out…’ for in many languages ‘regions’ cannot ‘go,’ only people can go. Hence one must introduce some more acceptable immediate subject, e.g. ‘people from all over Judea went’ (if ‘all’ is to be related to Judea) or ‘all the people from Judea went’ (if ‘all’ is to be taken with ‘people’). The resultant meanings are essentially similar, though the first may reflect more accurately the relative use of ‘all’ (the Greek pasa and pantes are certainly not to be taken in their literal sense, any more than the corresponding words thus construed in English or most other languages).

A further syntactic rearrangement may be required in some languages in order that both parts of the subject may be preposed to the verb, e.g. ‘people all over Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.’

Baptize has given rise not only to an immense amount of discussion in terms of its meaning within the Judaeo-Christian historical context, but also continues to introduce serious problems for translators today. In many instances the recommendation has been to transliterate, i.e. employing some indigenous equivalent of the sounds of the word in some more prestigeful language spoken in the region, e.g. English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. Though this solution tends to remove some theological controversies, it does not completely satisfy everyone, for not only does it avoid the problem of the mode of baptism, but it leaves the Scriptures with a zero word. Unfortunately, many of the controversies over the indigenous equivalent of baptism arise because of a false evaluation of a word’s so-called etymology. For example, in Yucateco the word for baptism means literally ‘to enter the water,’ but this term is used freely by both Presbyterians and Roman Catholics, even though it might appear to be strictly “Baptist nomenclature.” Similarly, in Kekchi, an even “stronger” term ‘to put under the water’ is employed by Nazarenes and Roman Catholics. Obviously the meanings of these Yucateco and Kekchí words are not derivable from their literal significance but from the fact that they now designate a particular kind of Christian rite. To insist on changing such a well established usage (and one to which immersionists could certainly not object) would seem quite unwarranted. The situation may, on the other hand, be reversed. There are instances in which immersionists are quite happy to use a term which though it means literally ‘to put water on the head’ has actually lost this etymological value and refers simply to the rite itself, regardless of the way in which it is performed. A translator should not, however, employ an already existing expression or construct a new phrase which will in its evident meaning rule out any major Christian constituency.

There are, of course, a number of instances in which traditional terms for ‘baptism’ need modification. In some situations the word may mean only ‘to give a new name to’ (one aspect of christening) or ‘to be one who lights’ (referring to a custom in some traditions of lighting a candle at the time of baptism). However, in order to reproduce the core of significant meaning of the original Biblical term, it is important to explore the entire range if indigenous usage in order that whatever term is chosen may have at least some measure of cultural relevance. In Navajo, for example, there were four principal possibilities of choice: (1) borrowing some transliterated form of the English word, (2) constructing a phrase meaning ‘to touch with water’ (an expression which would have been acceptable with some groups in the field, but not with others), (3) using a phrase meaning ‘ceremonial washing’ (but this expression seemed to be too closely related to indigenous practices in healing ceremonies), and (4) devising an expression meaning ‘to dedicate (or consecrate) by water,’ without specifying the amount of water employed. This last alternative was chosen as the most meaningful and the best basis for metaphorical extension and teaching.

On the other hand, it would be wrong to think that the meaning of ‘washing’ must be rejected in all languages. For example, it is quite appropriate in Kpelle culture, since it ties in with male puberty rites, and in the San Blas Kuna society, since washing is a very important aspect of female puberty ceremonies, in some translations ‘water’ is introduced into the expression for baptism, but the quantity and means of administrating it are left quite ambiguous, e.g. ‘to get (take, receive) water’ (Tzeltal). Toraja-Sa’dan, Pamona and Batak Toba render the verb ‘to pour water over, give a bath.’

One would assume that an equivalent of confess would not be difficult to find, but such is not always the case. In general the principal problem is to avoid some technical, ritualistic term which will carry over too many non-Christian associations. One of the best translations is simply ‘to say openly’ (Highland Puebla Nahuatl, Tzeltal), since this was certainly public confession. There are, however, a number of idiomatic equivalents of confession, e.g. ‘to accuse oneself of his own evil’ (San Blas Kuna), ‘telling the truth about their sins’ (Kankanae), and ‘to take aim at one’s sin’ (Huastec, an idiom which is derived from the action of a hunter taking aim at a bird or animal).

The principal syntactic difficulty in the second clause involves relating the confession of sins to the process of being baptized. The Greek text implies that confession was an essential element of the process of being baptized, and though the participle meaning ‘confessing’ follows the main verb and can be rendered with a degree of ambiguity in English, this is usually not possible in other languages. More often than not, one must select the temporal order of the processes, and if this is required by the syntactic structure of the language in question, it is valid to follow the same implied temporal order of verse 4, in which the repentance, if it is to characterize the baptism, is likely to have preceded it. Therefore in this verse, ‘confessing’ may be described as preceding, e.g. ‘after confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the river Jordan’ (Amganad Ifugao). In Shipibo-Conibo, the necessity of using direct discourse after the verb of speaking results in a modification of order, but temporal sequence is the same: ‘Then he washed them, at the Jordan stream, when they said: It is true. We have sinned.’ (In Shipibo-Conibo, a language spoken in the Amazon river basin, one must use a special word designating a mountain stream, so as not to give the impression that the Jordan was in any sense like the vast major tributaries of the Amazon.)

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 .