In Kadiwéu, it is not possible to use a rhetorical question for the purpose of linking subjects as is done in Romans 9:30 in the Greek (and English) text. Here, It was treated by dropping the question form and making a statement as follows: “We can see (then) that the non-Jews who did not seek to be accepted by God were accepted by Him because they trusted in Him.” (Source: Glyn Griffiths in Notes on Translation June 1986, p. 25ff.) See also here.
In Chicahuaxtla Triqui it is translated as “so then hear well, all of you, this word that I will speak.” (Source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)
The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).
For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the writer of the letter and the readers).
Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
Following are a number of back-translations of Romans 9:30:
Uma: “So, my words are like this: People who aren’t Israel people, they did not hunt for way to become straight in God’s sight. But there are some of them who became straight in his sight. God made them straight in his sight because of their faith.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “So-then, what do we (dual) say about this? What we (dual) say is that the people not Yahudi, they did not aspire-to/try-to be forgiven and be considered straight in the sight of God. But they are now the ones forgiven and considered by God as straight because of their trust in Isa Almasi.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “What I am trying to say here is: as for the people who are not Jews, even though it never entered their minds that they would be considered righteous by God, there were some of them who by means of their faith, were made righteous just the same;” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “This then is the summary (lit. gathering-together) of these-things that I have said. The Gentiles who were not striving to be-made-righteous in God’s sight, they nevertheless gained the righteousness that is based on their faith in Cristo.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Thus the word is that the people who are not Jews are the people who did not seek as how to get right with God. But they were put right with him because they believed.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
Highland Totonac: “Well, what does this mean? It is this, that the outsider people who were not searching how to toe the line to come out free, they are the ones who found it, that is, this coming out free that has its beginning in faith.”
Huehuetla Tepehua: “Well, what shall we say? This lets us know that those who aren’t Israelites found the straight life before God even though they didn’t hunt for it, They found the straight life when they put their confidence in Christ.” (Source for this and above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
The Greek, Hebrew, Ge’ez, and Latin terms that are translated in English mostly as “righteous” or “righteousness” (see below for a discussion of the English translation) are most commonly expressed with concept of “straightness,” though this may be expressed in a number of ways. (Click or tap here to see the details)
Following is a list of (back-) translations of various languages:
Paasaal: “white heart” (source: Fabian N. Dapila in The Bible Translator 2024, p. 415ff.)
(San Mateo del Mar Huave: “completely good” (the translation does not imply sinless perfection)
Nuer: “way of right” (“there is a complex concept of “right” vs. ‘left’ in Nuer where ‘right’ indicates that which is masculine, strong, good, and moral, and ‘left’ denotes what is feminine, weak, and sinful (a strictly masculine viewpoint!) The ‘way of right’ is therefore righteousness, but of course women may also attain this way, for the opposition is more classificatory than descriptive.”) (This and all above from Bratcher / Nida except for Bilua: Carl Gross; Tiv: Rob Koops; Muna: René van den Berg)
Yatzachi Zapotec: “walk straight” (source for this and four previous: John Beekman in Notes on Translation November 1964, p. 1-22)
Makonde: “doing what God wants” (in a context of us doing) and “be good in God’s eyes” (in the context of being made righteous by God) (note that justify / justification is translated as “to be made good in the eyes of God.” (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Aari: The Pauline word for “righteous” is generally rendered by “makes one without sin” in the Aari, sometimes “before God” is added for clarity. (Source: Loren Bliese)
Ekari: maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (the same word that is also used for “truth“; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
Guhu-Samane: pobi or “right” (also: “right (side),” “(legal) right,” “straightness,” “correction,” “south,” “possession,” “pertinence,” “kingdom,” “fame,” “information,” or “speech” — “According to [Guhu-Samane] thinking there is a common core of meaning among all these glosses. Even from an English point of view the first five can be seen to be closely related, simply because of their similarity in English. However, from that point the nuances of meaning are not so apparent. They relate in some such a fashion as this: As one faces the morning sun, south lies to the right hand (as north lies to the left); then at one’s right hand are his possessions and whatever pertains to him; thus, a rich man’s many possessions and scope of power and influence is his kingdom; so, the rich and other important people encounter fame; and all of this spreads as information and forms most of the framework of the people’s speech.”) (Source: Ernest Richert in Notes on Translation 1964, p. 11ff.)
German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999): Gerechtheit, a neologism to differentiate it from the commonly-used Gerechtigkeit which can mean “justice” but is more often used in modern German as “fairness” (Berger / Nord especially use Gerechtheit in Letter to the Romans) or Gerechtestun, also a neologism, meaning “righteous deeds” (especially in Letter to the Ephesians)
“a clear man, good [man]” (Mairasi) (source: Enggavoter 2004)
Cherokee: “with heart” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 29)
The English translation of righteousness, especially in the New Testament is questioned by Nicholas Wolterstorff (2008, p. 110ff.) (Click or tap here to see the details)
Those who approach the New Testament solely through English translations face a serious linguistic obstacle to apprehending what these writings say about justice. In most English translations, the word “justice” occurs relatively infrequently. It is no surprise, then, that most English-speaking people think the New Testament does not say much about justice; the Bibles they read do not say much about justice. English translations are in this way different from translations into Latin, French, Spanish, German, Dutch — and for all I know, most languages.
The basic issue is well known among translators and commentators. Plato’s Republic, as we all know, is about justice. The Greek noun in Plato’s text that is standardly translated as “justice” is dikaiosunē (δικαιοσύνη); the adjective standardly translated as “just” is dikaios (δίκαιος). This same dik-stem occurs around three hundred times in the New Testament, in a wide variety of grammatical variants.
To the person who comes to English translations of the New Testament fresh from reading and translating classical Greek, it comes as a surprise to discover that though some of those occurrences are translated with grammatical variants on our word “just,” the great bulk of dik-stem words are translated with grammatical variants on our word “right.” The noun, for example, is usually translated as “righteousness,” not as “justice.” In English we have the word “just” and its grammatical variants coming horn the Latin iustitia, and the word “right” and its grammatical variants coining from the Old English recht. Almost all our translators have decided to translate the great bulk of dik-stem words in the New Testament with grammatical variants on the latter — just the opposite of the decision made by most translators of classical Greek.
I will give just two examples of the point. The fourth of the beatitudes of Jesus, as recorded in the fifth chapter of Matthew, reads, in the New Revised Standard Version, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” The word translated as “righteousness” is dikaiosunē. And the eighth beatitude, in the same translation, reads “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” The Greek word translated as “righteousness” is dikaiosunē. Apparently, the translators were not struck by the oddity of someone being persecuted because he is righteous. My own reading of human affairs is that righteous people are either admired or ignored, not persecuted; people who pursue justice are the ones who get in trouble.
It goes almost without saying that the meaning and connotations of “righteousness” are very different in present-day idiomatic English from those of “justice.” “Righteousness” names primarily if not exclusively a certain trait of personal character. (…) The word in present-day idiomatic English carries a negative connotation. In everyday speech one seldom any more describes someone as righteous; if one does, the suggestion is that he is self-righteous. “Justice,” by contrast, refers to an interpersonal situation; justice is present when persons are related to each other in a certain way. There is, indeed, a long tradition of philosophical and theological discussion on the virtue of justice. But that use of the term has almost dropped out of idiomatic English; we do not often speak any more of a person as just. And in any case, the concept of the virtue of justice presupposes the concept of those social relationships that are just.
So when the New Testament writers speak of dikaiosunē, are they speaking of righteousness or of justice? Is Jesus blessing those who hunger and thirst for righteousness or those who hunger and thirst for justice?
A thought that comes to mind is that the word changed meaning between Plato and the New Testament. Had Jesus’ words been uttered in Plato’s time and place, they would have been understood as blessing those who hunger and thirst for the social condition of justice. In Jesus’ time and place, they would have been understood as blessing (hose who hunger and thirst for righteousness — that is, for personal moral rectitude.
Between the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament there came the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. (…) One of the challenges facing the Septuagint translators was how to catch, in the Greek of their day, the combination of mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט) with tsedeq (צֶ֫דֶק). Tsedeq that we find so often in the Old Testament, standardly translated into English as justice and righteousness. The solution they settled on was to translate tsedeq as dikaiosunē, and to use a term whose home use was in legal situations, namely, krisis (κρίσις), to translate mishpat. Mishpat and tsedeq became krisis and dikaiosunē. For the most part, this is also how they translated the Hebrew words even when they were not explicitly paired with each other: mishpat (justice) becomes krisis, tsedeq (righteousness) becomes dikaiosunē. The pattern is not entirely consistent, however; every now and then, when mishpat is not paired off with tsedeq, it is translated with dikaiosunē or some other dik-stem word (e.g., 1 Kings 3:28, Proverbs 17:23, Isaiah 61:8).
I think the conclusion that those of us who are not specialists in Hellenistic Greek should draw from this somewhat bewildering array of data is that, in the linguistic circles of the New Testament writers, dikaiosunē did not refer definitively either to the character trait of righteousness (shorn of its negative connotations) or to the social condition of justice, but was ambiguous as between those two. If dikaiosunē had referred decisively in Hellenistic Greek to righteousness rather than to justice, why would the Septuagint translators sometimes use it to translate mishpat, why would Catholic translators [into the 1980s] usually translate it as “justice,” and why would all English translators sometimes translate it as “justice”? (All earlier Latin-based Catholic translations, the New American Bible and the Jerusalem Bible, both of which appeared in the early 1970s have most occurrences of dik-stem words translated with variants on “just.” In subsequent revisions of the New American Bible, and in the New Jerusalem Bible, these translations have been altered to translations along the lines of righteousness. Other translations that use a form of justice or “doing right / rightness” include the British New English Bible [1970] and Revised English Bible [1989] and some newer translations such as by Hart [2017], Ruden [2021] or McKnight [2023]).
Conversely, if it referred decisively to justice, why would the Septuagint translators usually not use it to translate mishpat, and why would almost all translators sometimes translate it as “righteousness”? Context will have to determine whether, in a given case, it is best translated as “justice” or as “righteousness” — or as something else instead; and if context does not determine, then it would be best, if possible, to preserve the ambiguity and use some such ambiguous expression as “what is right” or “the right thing.”
Let me make one final observation about translation. When one takes in hand a list of all the occurrences of dik-stem words in the Greek New Testament, and then opens up almost any English translation of the New Testament and reads in one sitting all the translations of these words, a certain pattern emerges: unless the notion of legal judgment is so prominent in the context as virtually to force a translation in terms of justice, the translators will prefer to speak of righteousness.
Translations of the Greek and Ge’ez that are typically translated as “faith” in English (itself deriving from Latin “fides,” meaning “trust, faith, confidence, reliance, credence”) and “believe” (from Old English belyfan: “to have faith or confidence in a person”) cover a wide range of approaches.
Bratcher and Nida say this (1961, p. 38) (click or tap here to read more):
“Since belief or faith is so essentially an intimate psychological experience, it is not strange that so many terms denoting faith should be highly figurative and represent an almost unlimited range of emotional ‘centers’ and descriptions of relationships, e.g. ‘steadfast his heart’ (Chol), ‘to arrive on the inside’ (Chicahuaxtla Triqui), ‘to conform with the heart’ (Uab Meto), ‘to join the word to the body’ (Uduk), ‘to hear in the insides’ (or ‘to hear within one’s self and not let go’ — Nida 1952) (Laka), ‘to make the mind big for something’ (Sapo), ‘to make the heart straight about’ (Mitla Zapotec), ‘to cause a word to enter the insides’ (Lacandon), ‘to leave one’s heart with’ (Baniwa), ‘to catch in the mind’ (Ngäbere), ‘that which one leans on’ (Vai), ‘to be strong on’ (Shipibo-Conibo), ‘to have no doubts’ (San Blas Kuna), ‘to hear and take into the insides’ (Kare), ‘to accept’ (Pamona).”
Following is a list of (back-) translations from other languages (click or tap here to read more):
Limos Kalinga: manuttuwa. Wiens (2013) explains: “It goes back to the word for ‘truth’ which is ‘tuttuwa.’ When used as a verb this term is commonly used to mean ‘believe’ as well as ‘obey.'”
Ngiemboon: “turn one’s back on someone” (and trusting one won’t be taken advantage of) (source: Stephen Anderson in Holzhausen 1991, p. 42)
Mwera uses the same word for “hope” and “faith”: ngulupai (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Yala: ɔtū che or “place heart” (in John 5:24; 5:45; 6:35; 6:47; 12:36; 14:1); other translations include chɛ̄ or “to agree/accept” and chɛ̄ku or “to agree with/accept with/take side with” (source: Linus Otronyi)
Matumbi: niu’bi’lyali or “believe / trust / rely (on)” and imani or “religious faith” (from Arabic īmān [إيما]) (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific notes in Paratext)
Ebira: “place one’s liver on something” (source: Scholz /Scholz 2015, p. 60)
Barí: a word related to standing in a hammock. Bruce Olson (1972, p. 159f.) tells this story — click or tap here to read more)
One evening, though, Bobby began to ask questions. We were sitting around a fire. The light flickered over him. His face was serious.
‘How can I walk on Jesus’ trail?’ he asked. ‘No Motilone [speakers of Barí] has ever done it. It’s a new thing. There is no other Motilone to tell how to do it.’
I remembered the problems I had had as a boy, how it sometimes appeared impossible to keep on believing in Jesus when my family and friends were so opposed to my commitment. That was what Bobby was going through.
‘Bobby,’ I said, ‘do you remember my first Festival of the Arrows, the first time I had seen all the Motilones gathered to sing their song?’ The festival was the most important ceremony in the Motilone culture.
He nodded. The fire flared up momentarily and I could see his eyes, staring intently at me.
‘Do you remember that I was afraid to climb in the high hammocks to sing, for fear that the rope would break? And I told you that I would sing only if I could have one foot in the hammock and one foot on the ground?’
‘Yes, Bruchko.’
‘And what did you say to me?’
He laughed. ‘I told you you had to have both feet in the hammock. ‘You have to be suspended,’ I said.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have to be suspended. That is how it is when you follow Jesus, Bobby. No man can tell you how to walk His trail. Only Jesus can. But to find out you have to tie your hammock strings into Him, and be suspended in God.’
Bobby said nothing. The fire danced in his eyes. Then he stood up and walked off into the darkness.
The next day he came to me. ‘Bruchko,’ he said, ‘I want to tie my hammock strings into Jesus Christ. But how can I? I can’t see Him or touch Him.’
‘You have talked to spirits, haven’t you?’
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I see now.’
The next day he had a big grin on his face. ‘Bruchko, I’ve tied my hammock strings into Jesus. Now I speak a new language.’
I didn’t understand what he meant. ‘Have you learned some of the Spanish I speak?’
He laughed, a clean, sweet laugh. ‘No, Bruchko, I speak a new language.’
Then I understood. To a Motilone, language is life. If Bobby had a new life, he had a new way of speaking. His speech would be Christ-oriented.
Awabakal: ngurruliko: “to know, to perceive by the ear” (as distinct from knowing by sight or by touch — source: Lake, p. 70) (click or tap here to read more)
“[The missionary translator] Lancelot Threlkeld learned that Awabakal, like many Australian languages, made no distinction between knowing and believing. Of course the distinction only needs to be made where there are rival systems of knowing. The Awabakal language expressed a seamless world. But as the stress on ‘belief’ itself suggests, Christianity has always existed in pluralist settings. Conversion involves deep conviction, not just intellectual assent or understanding. (…) Translating such texts posed a great challenge in Australia. Threlkeld and [his indigenous colleague] Biraban debated the possibilities at length. In the end they opted not to introduce a new term for belief, but to use the Awabakal ngurruliko, meaning ‘to know, to perceive by the ear,’ as distinct from knowing by sight or by touch.”
Language in southern Nigeria: a word based on the idiom “lose feathers.” Randy Groff in Wycliffe Bible Translators 2016, p. 65 explains (click or tap here to read more):
What does losing feathers have to do with faith? [The translator] explained that there is a species of bird in his area that, upon hatching its eggs, loses its feathers. During this molting phase, the mother bird is no longer able to fly away from the nest and look for food for her hungry hatchlings. She has to remain in the nest where she and her babies are completely dependent upon the male bird to bring them food. Without the diligent, dependable work of the male bird, the mother and babies would all die. This scenario was the basis for the word for faith in his language.
Teribe: mär: “pick one thing and one thing only” (source: Andy Keener)
Tiv: na jighjigh: “give trust” (source: Andy Warren-Rothlin)
Luba-Katanga: Twi tabilo: “echo” (click or tap here to read more)
“Luba-Katanga word for ‘Faith’ in its New Testament connotation is Twi tabilo. This word means ‘echo,’ and the way in which it came to be adapted to the New Testament meaning gives a very good idea of the way in which the translator goes to work. One day a missionary was on a journey through wild and mountainous country. At midday he called his African porters to halt, and as they lay resting in the shade from the merciless heat of the sun. an African picked up a stone and sent it ricocheting down the mountain-side into the ravine below. After some seconds the hollow silence was broken by a plunging, splashing sound from the depths of the dark river-bed. As the echo died away the African said in a wondering whisper ‘Twi tabilo, listen to it.’ So was a precious word captured for the service of the Gospel in its Luba Christian form. Twi tabilo — ‘faith which is the echo of God’s voice in the depths of human sinful hearts, awakened by God Himself, the answer to his own importunate call.’ The faith that is called into being by the divine initiative, God’s own gift to the responsive heart! (Source: Wilfred Bradnock in The Bible Translator 1953, p. 49ff. )
The Japanese term shin-kō (信仰) was a newly coined word for the purpose of Bible translation but is used widely today beyond its Christian origin. Junko Nakai (in: The Bible Translator 2006, p. 115ff. ) explains: “There are many words either newly created or adapted to introduce new Christian concepts distinct from the established religious ones. An example is the Sino-Japanese noun, shin-kō, as the equivalent of pistis “faith.” The existing term for “belief” or “trust” was mainly the Sino-Japanese noun, shin, often used as the stem of a verb, shin-zu ‘believe.’ The term shin-kō, formed by adding another verb aogu, to ‘look up’ with respect, or to ‘ask,’ in native Japanese, read as kō in Sino-Japanese, did exist, but not in wide use. (…) This word was used in Buddhist scriptures, but read as shin-gō in early days. During the process of translating the Bible, the Chinese compound written in the same Chinese characters (信仰) but read as shin-kō establishes itself as the term denoting Christian ‘faith.’ Later it comes to be recognized as the new term denoting ‘faith’ in general in a wider religious context. This fact attests to the impact of Bible translation on the development of modern Japanese language.”
J.A. van Roy (in The Bible Translator 1972, p. 418ff. ) discusses how a translation of “faith” in a an earlier translation into Venda created difficult perceptions of the concept of faith (click or tap here):
The Venda term u tenda, lutendo. This term corresponds to the terms ho dumela (Southern Sotho), and ku pfumela (Tsonga) that have been used in these translations of the Bible, and means “to assent,” “to agree to a suggestion.” It is important to understand this term in the context of the character of the people who use it.
The way in which the Venda use this term reveals much about the priority of interpersonal relationships among them. They place a much higher priority on responding in the way they think they are expected to respond than on telling the truth. Smooth interpersonal relationships, especially with a dominant individual or group, take precedence over everything else.
It is therefore regarded as bad form to refuse directly when asked for something one does not in fact intend to give. The correct way is to agree, u tenda, and then forget about it or find some excuse for not keeping to the agreement. Thus u tenda does not necessarily convey the information that one means what one says. One can tenda verbally while heartily disagreeing with the statement made or having no intention whatsoever to carry out what one has just promised to do. This is not regarded as dishonesty, but is a matter of politeness.
The term u sokou tenda, “to consent reluctantly,” is often used for expressing the fatalistic attitude of the Venda in the face of misfortune or force which he is unable to resist.
The form lutendo was introduced by missionaries to express “faith.”
According to the rules of derivations and their meanings in the lu-class, it should mean “the habit of readily consenting to everything.” But since it is a coined word which does not have a clearly defined set of meanings in everyday speech, it has acquired in church language a meaning of “steadfastness in the Christian life.” Una lutendo means something like “he is steadfast in the face of persecution.” It is quite clear that the term u tenda has no element of “trust” in it. (…)
In “The Christian Minister” of July 1969 we find the following statement about faith by Albert N. Martin: “We must never forget that one of the great issues which the Reformers brought into focus was that faith was something more than an ‘assensus,’ a mere nodding of the head to the body of truth presented by the church as ‘the faith.’ The Reformers set forth the biblical concept that faith was ‘fiducia.’ They made plain that saving faith involved trust, commitment, a trust and commitment involving the whole man with the truth which was believed and with the Christ who was the focus of that truth. The time has come when we need to spell this out clearly in categorical statements so that people will realize that a mere nodding of assent to the doctrines that they are exposed to is not the essence of saving faith. They need to be brought to the understanding that saving faith involves the commitment of the whole man to the whole Christ, as Prophet, Priest and King as he is set forth in the gospel.”
We quote at length from this article because what Martin says of the current concept of faith in the Church is even to a greater extent true of the Venda Church, and because the terms used for communicating that concept in the Venda Bible cannot be expected to communicate anything more than “a mere nodding of assent”. I have during many years of evangelistic work hardly ever come across a Venda who, when confronted with the gospel, would not say, Ndi khou tenda, “I admit the truth of what you say.” What they really mean when saying this amounts to, “I believe that God exists, and I have no objection to the fact that he exists. I suppose that the rest of what you are talking about is also true.” They would often add, Ndi sa tendi hani-hani? “Just imagine my not believing such an obvious fact!” To the experienced evangelist this is a clear indication that his message is rejected in so far as it has been understood at all! To get a negative answer, one would have to press on for a promise that the “convert” will attend the baptism class and come to church on Sundays, and even then he will most probably just tenda in order to get rid of the evangelist, whether he intends to come or not. Isn’t that what u tenda means? So when an inexperienced and gullible white man ventures out on an evangelistic campaign with great enthusiasm, and with great rejoicing returns with a list of hundreds of names of persons who “believed”, he should not afterwards blame the Venda when only one tenth of those who were supposed to be converts actually turn up for baptismal instruction.
Moreover, it is not surprising at all that one often comes across church members of many years’ standing who do not have any assurance of their salvation or even realise that it is possible to have that assurance. They are vhatendi, “consenters.” They have consented to a new way of life, to abandoning (some of) the old customs. Lutendo means to them at most some steadfastness in that new way of life.
The concept of faith in religion is strange to Africa. It is an essential part of a religion of revelation such as Christianity or Islam, but not of a naturalistic religion such as Venda religion, in which not faith and belief are important, but ritual, and not so much the content of the word as the power of it.
The terms employed in the Venda Bible for this vital Christian concept have done nothing to effect a change in the approach of the Venda to religion.
It is a pity that not only in the Venda translation has this been the case, but in all the other Southern Bantu languages. In the Nguni languages the term ukukholwa, “to believe a fact,” has been used for pisteuo, and ukholo, the deverbative of ukukholwa, for pistis. In some of the older Protestant translations in Zulu, but not in the new translation, the term ithemba, “trust”, has been used.
Some languages, including Santali, have two terms — like English (see above) — to differentiate a noun from a verb form. Biswạs is used for “faith,” whereas pạtiạu for “believe.” R.M. Macphail (in The Bible Translator 1961, p. 36ff. ) explains this choice: “While there is little difference between the meaning and use of the two in everyday Santali, in which any word may be used as a verb, we felt that in this way we enriched the translation while making a useful distinction, roughly corresponding to that between ‘faith’ and ‘to believe’ in English.”
Likewise, in Noongar, koort-karni or “heart truth” is used for the noun (“faith”) and djinang-karni or “see true” for the verb (“believe”) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang).
In Hungarian Sign Language “faith” is translated with a sign that refers to the gesture of clinging to God, which expresses a certainty in things unseen (see Hebrews 11:1). (Source: Jenjelvi Biblia and HSL Bible Translation Group)
The introductory question may be conveniently transformed into a statement—for example, “this is what we are saying,” “this is what we mean,” or “this is the significance of what we are saying.”
In Greek this verse reads, “What shall we say? That the nations who were not seeking righteousness attained righteousness, but the righteousness of faith.” Here again the Good News Translation changes the noun “righteousness” to a verb phrase meaning “to be put right with God.” And the phrase “the righteousness of faith” is translated as were put right with him through faith.
It is possible to understand the last part of this verse and all of verse 31 as a second question, that the Gentiles … did not find it?, but few modern translations accept this interpretation (see New American Bible). If this is taken as a question, it is obvious that the intended answer is “yes.”
Because of the necessity in some languages of changing passive to active expressions, one may restructure the clauses of verse 30 as “the Gentiles were not trying to put themselves right with God, but God put them right with himself because they trusted him” or “… by means of their trusting him.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
In this section Paul compared the Gentiles to the Jews. Some Gentiles believed in Jesus and God made them righteous, but the Jews tried to obey the law of Moses to become righteous. They stumbled over who Jesus was as the Messiah, because he did not fit their ideas of what the Messiah should be.
Paul explained that he wanted the Jews to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. The Jews were enthusiastic to follow God, but they did not understand the right way to become righteous.
Here are other possible headings for this section:
The Jews followed the wrong way to become righteous
-or-
The Jews followed the Laws of Moses but did not believe in Jesus as the Christ/Messiah
Paragraph 9:30–33
9:30a
What then will we say?: The word then indicates a connection to previous verses. Here it introduces the question “What shall we say?” In some languages it is more natural to have the word then first. For example:
Then/Therefore, what shall we say?
What…will we say?: This is a rhetorical question. It draws attention to what Paul said next. Paul did not expect the readers to answer this question. But he did expect the readers to agree with what he said next. Here are other ways to translate this question:
What…are we to say? (New Revised Standard Version)
-or-
what does all this mean? (New Century Version)
In some languages the correct meaning is indicated by using a statement instead of a question. For example:
We should say this:
-or-
Our conclusion is this:
9:30b
That: This word implies that Paul suggested that he and the others would or should say what follows. In some languages the implicit information must be added to make the sentence a proper one. For example:
⌊We will/should say⌋ that
the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it: There is no the before the word Gentiles in the Greek. Here it indicates that Paul spoke of Gentiles in general not pursuing righteousness. If possible, translate with that meaning. For example:
Gentiles, in general, do not pursue righteousness, but some attained it
-or-
the Gentiles do not generally/usually pursue righteousness, but some of them attained it
Gentiles: This word refers to people who are not Jews. See how you translated this word in 1:5 or 9:24.
did not pursue: The Greek here is present tense, indicating something that happens generally, past, present and future. For example:
do not pursue
pursue righteousness: Here this refers to trying hard to become righteous. For example:
trying to put themselves right with God (Good News Translation)
righteousness: Here this word refers to a person’s relationship with God being right. Here are other ways to translate this word:
God’s approval (God’s Word)
-or-
being right ⌊with God⌋
See how you translated this word in 4:3.
have obtained it: This indicates that righteousness is now available to Gentiles. Here are other ways to translate these words:
have attained it (English Standard Version)
-or-
have achieved it (New American Bible, Revised Edition)
-or-
have been given it
-or-
Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness, ⌊God⌋ has given it to them
9:30c
The Greek of 9:30c begins with a word that is often translated as “and” or “but.” Here it introduces an explanation of how these Gentiles became right before God. Here are other ways to translate this phrase:
namely, a righteousness that is by faith
-or-
That righteousness is the kind that comes from faith
faith: Here this word refers to believing in Jesus. In some languages a literal translation would not be clear as to which kind of faith Paul meant. If that is true in your language, you may want to explain in your translation. For example:
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