Heavenly Jerusalem

Painting by Nalini Jayasuriya (1927 – 2014), used with permission by the Overseas Ministries Study Center (OMSC) at Princeton Theological Seminary. You can purchase this and many other artworks by artists in residence at the OSMC in high resolution and without a watermark via the OSMC website .

“Nalini M. Jayasuriya was an internationally known artist from Sri Lanka, who exhibited her soul-stirring paintings in Manila, London, Bangkok, Paris, Toronto, Tokyo, Jerusalem and New York. (…) While growing up in Sri Lanka, Nalini never took an art course. As an eight-year old assigned to draw a still life in drawing class, she ended up erasing a hole in her paper, and was told to take her books and leave. She spent the rest of the year’s drawing class time in the library. Her real talent was music; from about age four, she could play almost any piece of music that she heard. At about age fifteen, she wrote a number of poems that were published, and later wrote a secondary-level reader consisting of letters from her cat, Ingy.

“The direction of Nalini’s life changed when, as a young ESL teacher, she was offered an unsolicited British Council grant to study in England. She saw this as one of the many miracles in her life. For three years in London, she experienced a whole new world. She added evening classes to her schedule, including coursework in stained glass and enamel on metal, thinking that she would never again have such an opportunity. Later, she received seven scholarships and fellowships, (none of which she applied for) and she went on to live in thirty-six different countries.

“’I come from a land of rich, ancient, and diverse cultures and traditions. While I carry the enriching influences of both West and East, I express myself through an Asian and Christian consciousness with respect for all confessions of religious faith.’ Nalini Jayasuriya)” (Source )

complete verse (Revelation 21:13)

Following are a number of back-translations of Revelation 21:13:

  • Uma: “That fort had four sides, and in each side are three doors: three in the east, three in the north, three in the south, and three in the west.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “There were three doors in the wall towards east, three towards west, and across the place on each side there were also three doors.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “The wall of the city has four sides, and in each wall there are three gates. On the side of the east there are three gates. On the side of the west, three also. On the side of downstream there are three also, and on the side of upstream, three gates also.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “There were three-entrances -each on the facing-sides–on the east (lit. coming-out of the sun) and west (lit. going-out-of-sight of the sun), the side-toward the north and side-toward the south.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “The gates were in threes on each side. Three were toward the east and three toward the west. Three were toward the south and three also were toward the north.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “At the side of the city where the sun rises there were three gates. On the side of the city on the north there were three gates. At the side of the city on the south there were three gates. At the side of the city where the sun sets, there were three gates.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

cardinal directions

The cardinal directions “east” and “west” are easy to translate into Maan here since the language uses “where the sun comes up” and “where the sun goes down.” For “north” the translator had “facing toward the sun rising to the left,” and for “south” she had “facing toward the sun rising to the right.” So the listener had to think hard before knowing what direction was in view when translating “to the north and south, to the east and west.” So, in case all four directions are mentioned, it was shortened by saying simply “all directions.” Manya uses a similar nomenclature for the cardinal directions. (Source: Don Slager)

Likewise, Yakan has “from the four corners of the earth” (source: Yakan back-translation) or Western Bukidnon Manobo “from the four directions here on the earth” (source: Western Bukidnon Manobo back-translation).

Kankanaey is “from the coming-out and the going-away of the sun and the north and the south” (source: Kankanaey back-translation), Northern Emberá “from where the sun comes up, from where it falls, from the looking [left] hand, from the real [right] hand” (source: Charles Mortensen), Amele “from the direction of the sun going up, from the direction of the sun going down, from the north and from the south” (source: John Roberts), Ejamat “look up to see the side where the sun comes from, and the side where it sets, and look on your right side, and on your left” (source: David Frank in this blog post ).

In Lamba, only umutulesuŵa, “where the sun rises” and imbonsi, “where the sun sets” were available as cardinal directions that were not tied to the local area of language speakers (“north” is kumausi — “to the Aushi country” — and “south” kumalenje — “to the Lenje country”). So “north” and “south” were introduced as loanwords, nofu and saufu respectively. The whole phrase is kunofu nakusaufu nakumutulesuŵa nakumbonsi. (Source C. M. Doke in The Bible Translator 1958, p. 57ff. )

“West” is translated in Tzeltal as “where the sun pours-out” and in Kele as “down-river” (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel).

In Morelos Nahuatl, “north” is translated as “from above” and “south” as “from below.” (Source: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)

In Matumbi cardinal directions are defined as in relation to another place. “East” for instance typically is “toward the beach” since the coast is in the eastern direction in Matumbi-speaking areas. “North” and “south” can be defined as above or below another place. (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)

The Hebrew text that gives instructions where to place items in the tabernacle with the help of cardinal directions (north and south) had to be approached in the Bambam translation specific to spacial concepts of that culture.

Phil Campbell explains: “There are no words in Bambam for north and south. In Exodus 26:35, God instructs that the table is to be placed on the north side and the lamp on the south side inside the tabernacle. The team wants to use right and left to tell where the lamp and table are located. In many languages we would say that the table is on the right and the lampstand is on the left based on the view of someone entering the tabernacle. However, that is not how Bambam people view it. They view the placement of things and rooms in a building according to the orientation of someone standing inside the building facing the front of the building. So that means the table is on the left side and the lampstand is on the right side.”

See also cardinal directions / left and right and people of the East.

Translation commentary on Revelation 21:12 – 21:13

A great, high wall: this can be translated “a very high wall” or “a strong, high wall.” It may be necessary to say “It had a very high wall around it.” In many cultures high wall will be expressed as “high fence.”

Twelve gates … twelve angels … the names of the twelve tribes: it should be clear in the translation that there was one angel standing guard at each of the twelve gates, and one name on each gate. In many languages it will be necessary to say “at each of the gates there was an angel on guard (or, watching it).”

The twelve tribes of the sons of Israel: this can be more simply said “the twelve tribes of Israel.” The whole sentence may be expressed as “On the gates they had written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, one name on each gate.”

Commentators note the rather unusual sequence of the points of the compass: east, north, south, west (as in Ezek 42.16-19). In Ezek 48.30-34 the order is north, east, south, west, and in 1 Chr 9.24 it is east, west, north, south. Some try to find a hidden meaning in the order followed; if there is such a meaning, it is not obvious to the reader. Some languages have a fixed sequence that is followed, such as English “north, south, east, and west.” A translator should feel free to follow such a sequence in the language into which the translation is being done.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Revelation to John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1993. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .

SIL Translator’s Notes on Revelation 21:13

21:13a–b

There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west: The Greek words are literally “from the east three gates, from the north three gates, from the south three gates, and from the west three gates.” The city wall surrounded the city in the shape of a square. Each part of the wall had three gates in it. For example:

on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates (Revised Standard Version)

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