Mark 5:42 – TIPs

amazed, astonished, marvel

The Greek that is translated as “astonished” or “amazed” or “marvel” in English is translated in Pwo Karen as “stand up very tall.” (In John 5:20, source: David Clark)

Elsewhere it is translated as “confusing the inside of the head” (Mende), “shiver in the liver” (Uduk, Laka), “to lose one’s heart” (Mískito, Tzotzil), “to shake” (Southern Bobo Madaré), “to be with mouth open” (Panao Huánuco Quechua) (source: Bratcher / Nida), “to stand with your mouth open” (Citak) (source: Stringer 2007, p. 120), “ceasing to think with the heart” (Bulu), or “surprise in the heart” (Yamba) (source for this and one above: W. Reyburn in The Bible Translator 1959, p. 1ff. ).

In Mark 5:20 and elsewhere where the astonishment is a response to listening to Jesus, the translation is “listened quietly” in Central Tarahumara, “they forgot listening” (because they were so absorbed in what they heard that they forgot everything else) in San Miguel El Grande Mixtec, “it was considered very strange by them” in Tzeltal (source: Bratcher / Nida), “in glad amazement” (to distinguish it from other kinds of amazement) (Quetzaltepec Mixe) (source: Robert Bascom), or “breath evaporated” (Mairasi) (source: Enngavoter 2004).

In Western Dani astonishment is emphasized with direct speech. In Mark 1:22, for instance, it says: “Wi!” yinuk, pi wareegwaarak — “They were all amazed, saying ‘Oh'” (source: Lourens De Vries in The Bible Translator 1992, p. 333ff. )

In Low German it is translated as grote Oken maken or “make big eyes” (sometime followed by: un kreegn dat Stillswiegen: “and became silent”) (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).

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 Nyongar it is biroka kadak or “summers had” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

definiteness

Definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents/entities that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases — in English marked with determiners such as “the,” “this,” “every,” and “both”) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases — in English marked with determiners such as “a/an,” “many,” “any,” “either,” and “some”). (source: Wikipedia)

“[As an example,] the English and Choctaw concepts of how definiteness and specificity are handled are not mapable to each other, even though the mechanism for the marking itself, a set of affixes, is quite simple.

“English wrings as much work as possible from the articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and a few other demonstratives. A native speaker knows how to use these to refer to new information, to things already in evidence, to particular things, and to general members of a set. If these will not pick out something to a fine enough degree, we also can use a range of other constructions, such as relative clauses, adverbs, and even idioms to make finer distinctions. But these are not grammaticalized, they are tools the speaker may use to clarify an utterance, not mandatory.

“In strong contrast, Choctaw has a large, finely articulated, and morphologically efficient system to mark definiteness, contrast, specificity, and the like. A large set of affixes marks information about how specific something is, whether it has been mentioned previously, when in the discourse it was mentioned, whether it contrasts with something else in the discourse, how particularly it contrasts, whether it is part of a set, and other distinctions that are literally not possible to categorize in English.

The result in translation is that at some point, not only do English words fail, but some of the distinctions cannot even be made in a meaningful way. More precisely, we can perhaps capture the essence of the Choctaw distinctions, but only at the cost of a cumbersome sentence that would never be uttered by an English-speaker.” (Source: Marcia Haag in Swann 2011, p. 352f.)

Following are some examples from a Choctaw translation from 1881 (with the respective definiteness markers underlined):

The Greek that is translated as “when he came into the house” in English is translated as Milnna yυmmak ash osh aboha ont chukowa ma: “And when the one being discussed entered the room.” (See Mark 9:28)

The Greek that is translated as “the girl got up” in English is translated as ohoyo himita yash osh tani tok: “that young woman, the one being discussed, arose.” (See Matt 9:25 and Mark 5:42)

The Greek that is translated as “we know God spoke to Moses” in English is translated as Moses ak okvno Chihowa yυt im anumpuli beka tok a il ithana: “We know that Moses the particular one in contrast to others was the one whom Jehovah the definite subject of this clause used to speak to.” (See John 9:29)

Source: Haag / Willis 2007, p. 124.

Raising a Girl (image)

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:
Raising a Girl
Proof that Jesus is the true God

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

complete verse (Mark 5:42)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 5:42:

Uma: “The child got/woke up and immediately walked. (Her age was twelve years.) No kidding the surprise of the people who saw [this].” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Immediately the child got up and walked about in the house. She was twelve years old. They were very amazed.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The child got up and immediately began to walk around. She was twelve years old. The mother and father of the child were very much amazed.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “She truly got-right-up and walked. (That young-lady was twelve years old.) They were extremely amazed.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “It’s like the child was-suddenly-wakened, and sat up at once, going on to stand up and walk around, for she was twelve years old. Those companions of his/hers were really amazed.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 5:42

Exegesis:

anestē kai periepatei ‘got up and walked’: perhaps, ‘rose and started walking about.’

anistēmi (cf. 1.35) ‘rise,’ ‘get up.’

peripateō (cf. 2.9) ‘walk,’ ‘walk about.’

exestēsan … ekstasei megalē ‘they were amazed with a great amazement’ (cf. 4.41 ‘they feared a great fear’ for another example of this form of intensive statement).

existēmi (cf. 2.12) ‘to astonish,’ ‘to amaze,’ ‘to confound’: in the active aorist (as here) the verb has a passive sense, ‘to be astonished,’ ‘to be amazed.’

ekstasis (16.8) has the weakened sense of ‘bewilderment,’ ‘astonishment.’

Translation:

The Greek imperfect in the verb translated ‘walked’ has suggested to some translators the value of translating ‘was walking,’ but this may not always be done. For example, in one translation the imperfect tense suggested that she was walking, before she got up. Hence, ‘stood up and started to walk’ is preferable.

Twelve years is translated quite idiomatically in some languages, e.g. ‘her winters are twelve’ (Navajo) or ‘her seasons were ten on the head of two’ (Shilluk).

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 .