bed, mat

The Greek terms that are translated “mat” or “bed” or similar in English are translated in Ebira as odooro or “stretcher.” Hans-Jürgen Scholz (in Holzhausen 1991, p. 42f.) explains the long odyssey of finding the right term: The regular term for “bed” (ode) didn’t work since this only referred to the traditional raised mud floor used for sleeping which was unmovable and could not be used in the story. The term iveedi was used for a movable bed with a metal frame also did not work since it exclusively referred to modern beds imported from Japan which of course could also not be used in the context of the story. The word for “mat” (uvene) was also impossible to use since traditional mats are fragile and and could not possible be used to lower someone down from the roof. Finally the term odooro for “stretcher” was used.

Still the first version that used that term and said “roll up your stretcher and leave” still had to be changed one more time since stretchers are traditionally made of old rags and only used once. Therefore in the final text it had to be emphasized that the odooro had to be just cleared out of the house as a courtesy by the healed paralytic rather than to be kept for further use.

The Pfälzisch translation by Walter Sauer (publ. 2012) uses Bahr, also “stretcher.” (Source: Zetzsche)

See also mat.

your sins are forgiven

The Greek that is translated as “your sins are forgiven” in English” are translated in Lengo as “I forgive your sins.”

Paul Unger (see here) explains:

“In many languages, ‘demoting the subject’ is a key function of the passive. But the Lengo language of the Solomon Islands has no passive option. All sentences are active, which means we can’t hide ‘whodunnit’ with a passive.

“This raises significant issues for translating the New Testament (…) [since] 3,588 of the Greek New Testament’s 28,114 verbs are passive.

“What is a Lengo translator to do? Sometimes the subject isn’t demoted, so we can simply switch subject and object to make an active sentence. In Mark 1:9, ‘Jesus was baptized by John’ becomes ‘John baptized Jesus.’ Sometimes we can add a generic third-person subject. Mark 1:14 changes from ‘after John had been arrested’ to ‘after they had arrested John.’

“But those strategies don’t always work. Take, for example, the healing of the paralyzed man. Rather than healing the man at the outset, Jesus, seeing the faith of his friends, said to the paralyzed man, ‘My child, your sins are forgiven.’

“By using a passive to demote the subject, Jesus set up a scene rich with meaning beyond a ‘mere’ healing. Jesus doesn’t say who forgave the man’s sins, just that it was accomplished. The teachers of the law picked up on the passive right away: ‘Why does this man speak that way? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Jesus then tips His hand by asking which was easier—to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or ‘Get up, pick up your mat, and walk?’ And then the punchline: ‘So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . get up, pick up your mat, and go home.’

“We thought hard about how to render this section in Lengo. In the end, we had Jesus say, ‘My child, I forgive your sins.’ It’s somewhat unsatisfying to have Jesus tip His hand before the crucial moment, but it is an accurate and clear translation. Sometimes, the language compels us to make tradeoffs in attaining those hard goals.”

paralytic

The Greek that is translated as “paralytic” in English is translated by the Panjabi translation in Persian script with the common expression “one struck by paralysis.” (Source: Yousaf Sadiq in The Bible Translator 2021, p. 189ff.)

bed

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “bed” or similar in English is translated in Noongar as maya-ngwoorndiny or “bark sleeping” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).

See also mat, bed.

be of good cheer

The now commonly-used English idiom “be of good cheer” (be happy) was first coined in 1526 in the English New Testament translation of William Tyndale. (Source: Crystal 2010, p. 275)

For other idioms in English that were coined by Bible translation, see here.

In Low German it is translated as Kopp hoch, lit. “hold your head up high” (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006).

See also be cheered.

As the word about him spread people brought friends to him because they knew he cared (image)

“Successful Thai gatherings are always crowded. Four people carrying a wooden bed is a symbol of death to Thai people. Here Jesus symbolizes resurrection by raising the man from the sick bed back to health in body and soul.”

Drawing by Sawai Chinnawong who employs northern and central Thailand’s popular distinctive artistic style originally used to depict Buddhist moral principles and other religious themes; explanation by Paul DeNeui. From That Man Who Came to Save Us by Sawai Chinnawong and Paul H. DeNeui, William Carey Library, 2010.

For more images by Sawai Chinnawong in TIPs see here.

complete verse (Matthew 9:2)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 9:2:

  • Uma: “Arriving there, there were people who carried [on a stretcher–implied in verb] a lame person coming to Yesus. When he saw the bigness of their faith, he said to that lame person: ‘My child, make-strong your (sing.) heart! Your (sing.) sins are forgiven.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “People came to him carrying a paralyzed man. He was lying on his place-for-lying. When Isa saw that they really trusted him, he said to the paralyzed man, ‘Cheer up (lit. make your liver good), friend, your sins are forgiven.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Some people arrived bringing to Jesus a person who half of his body was dead who was lying on a hammock carried by four. When Jesus understood that their confidence in him was great, he said to this person who half of his body was dead, he said, ‘Friend, may your breath be good, because your sins are forgiven.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When that was so, there were those-who-brought to him a cripple who was lying-on-his-back on a stretcher. Upon Jesus’ seeing their trust in him, he said to that cripple, ‘Strengthen your (sing.) mind, companion. Your (sing.) sins are forgiven.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “When he was there again, some came who were bringing a person who was paralized (lit. had part of his body dead). When Jesus observed that the belief of those people was big, he said to the one with the illness, ‘Son, be encouraged (lit. strengthen your mind), for your sins have been forgiven.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “When he arrived at the town, there was brought to him a person lying on a mat who had paralyzed legs. Upon seeing what the people did in bringing the sick person, Jesus knew that these people believed that he was able to heal the sick person. He said to the sick person then: ‘Listen son, do not be sad at heart, now I have forgiven your sins,’ he said to him.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

forgive, forgiveness

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The concept of “forgiveness” is expressed in varied ways through translations. Following is a list of (back-) translations from some languages:

  • Tswa, North Alaskan Inupiatun, Panao Huánuco Quechua: “forget about”
  • Navajo (Dinė): “give back” (based on the idea that sin produces an indebtedness, which only the one who has been sinned against can restore)
  • Huichol, Shipibo-Conibo, Eastern Highland Otomi, Uduk, Tepo Krumen: “erase,” “wipe out,” “blot out”
  • Highland Totonac, Huautla Mazatec: “lose,” “make lacking”
  • Tzeltal: “lose another’s sin out of one’s heart”
  • Lahu, Burmese: “be released,” “be freed”
  • Ayacucho Quechua: “level off”
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “cast away”
  • Chol: “pass by”
  • Wayuu: “make pass”
  • Kpelle: “turn one’s back on”
  • Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “cover over” (a figure of speech which is also employed in Hebrew, but which in many languages is not acceptable, because it implies “hiding” or “concealment”)
  • Tabasco Chontal, Huichol: “take away sins”
  • Toraja-Sa’dan, Javanese: “do away with sins”
  • San Blas Kuna: “erase the evil heart” (this and all above: Bratcher / Nida, except Tepo Krumen: Peter Thalmann in Holzhausen / Riderer 2010, p. 25f.)
  • Eggon: “withdraw the hand”
  • Mískito: “take a man’s fault out of your heart” (source of this and the one above: Kilgour, p. 80)
  • Gamale Kham: “unstring someone” (“hold a grudge” — “have someone strung up in your heart”) (source: Watters, p. 171)
  • Hawai’i Creole English: “let someone go” (source: Jost Zetzsche)
  • Cebuano: “go beyond” (based on saylo)
  • Iloko: “none” or “no more” (based on awan) (source for this and above: G. Henry Waterman in The Bible Translator 1960, p. 24ff. )
  • Tzotzil: ch’aybilxa: “it has been lost” (source: Aeilts, p. 118)
  • Suki: biaek eisaemauwa: “make heart soft” (Source L. and E. Twyman in The Bible Translator 1953, p. 91ff. )
  • Warao: “not being concerned with him clean your obonja.” Obonja is a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions” (source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.)
  • Martu Wangka: “throw out badness” (source: Carl Gross)
  • Mairasi: “dismantle wrongs” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Nyulnyul: “have good heart” (source )
  • Kyaka: “burn the jaw bones” — This goes back to the pre-Christian custom of hanging the jaw bones of murdered relatives on ones door frame until the time of revenge. Christians symbolically burned those bones to show forgiveness which in turn became the word for “forgiveness” (source: Eugene Nida, according to this blog )
  • Koonzime: “remove the bad deed-counters” (“The Koonzime lay out the deeds symbolically — usually strips of banana leaf — and rehearse their grievances with the person addressed.”) (Source: Keith and Mary Beavon in Notes on Translation 3/1996, p. 16)
  • Arapaho: “setting is aside” (source )
  • Ngbaka: ele: “forgive and forget” (Margaret Hill [in Holzhausen & Ridere 2010, p. 8f.] recalls that originally there were two different words used in Ngbaka, one for God (ɛlɛ) and one for people (mbɔkɔ — excuse something) since it was felt that people might well forgive but, unlike God, can’t forget. See also this lectionary in The Christian Century .
  • Amahuaca: “erase” / “smooth over” (“It was an expression the people used for smoothing over dirt when marks or drawings had been made in it. It meant wiping off dust in which marks had been made, or wiping off writing on the blackboard. To wipe off the slate, to erase, to take completely away — it has a very wide meaning and applies very well to God’s wiping away sins, removing them from the record, taking them away.”) (Source: Robert Russel, quoted in Walls / Bennett 1959, p. 193)
  • Gonja / Dangme: “lend / loan” (in the words of one Dangme scholar: “When you sin and you are forgiven, you forget that you have been forgiven, and continue to sin. But when you see the forgiveness as a debt/loan which you will pay for, you do not continue to sin, else you have more debts to pay” — quoted in Jonathan E.T. Kuwornu-Adjaottor in Ibadan Journal of Religious Studies 17/2 2010, p. 67ff. )
  • Kwere: kulekelela, meaning literally “to allow for.” Derived from the root leka which means “to leave.” In other words, forgiveness is leaving behind the offense in relationship to the person. It is also used in contexts of setting someone free. (Source: Megan Barton)
  • Merina Malagasy: mamela or “leave / let go (of sin / mistakes)” (source: Brigitte Rabarijaona)
  • Mauwake: “take away one’s heaviness” (compare sin as “heavy”) (source: Kwan Poh San in this article )

See also this devotion on YouVersion .