Text:

Before to mustērion ‘the secret’ Textus Receptus and Kilpatrick add gnōnai ‘to know,’ which is omitted by all other editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

to mustērion … tēs basileias tou theou ‘the mystery of the kingdom of God’: the probable meaning is ‘the mystery concerning the kingdom of God’ (although another meaning is possible: ‘the mystery which is the kingdom of God’).

mustērion (only here in Mark) ‘mystery,’ ‘secret.’

hē basileia tou theou ‘the kingdom of God’: cf. 1.14.

humin … dedotai ‘to you … has been given,’ i.e. by God.

ekeinois de tois exō ‘but to those who are outside,’ i.e. those who, in contrast with humin ‘you,’ do not belong to the immediate group of disciples to whom God has given the secret (cf. Swete); some (cf. Gould) refer the ‘outsiders’ to those who are outside the Kingdom.

en parabolais ‘in parables,’ ‘by means of parables.’ The sense of ‘parables’ here is clearly that of something hard to understand, i.e. ‘riddles,’ after the Hebrew mashal ‘parable’ (cf. 3.23). In the Marcan context, however, parabolē ‘parable’ is a Christian technical term and means the stories Jesus used as illustrations in his teaching about the kingdom of God.

ta panta ginetai ‘all things are,’ ‘all things come,’ ‘those outside receive everything in parables,’ Lagrange tout arrive en paraboles. ta panta ‘all things’ in this context refer to the teachings, the truths, the explanations concerning the kingdom of God.

Translation:

In the expression to you has been given the secret … there is a passive construction which cannot be translated into a number of languages. However, two adaptations are possible: (1) the introduction of the agent, e.g. ‘God has given (or ‘is giving’) to you the secret…’ (Mezquital Otomi) or (2) the substitution of the active correspondent of give, namely, ‘receive,’ e.g. ‘you have received the secret….’

A mystery in the Biblical sense is essentially knowledge which has not been known to people in general, but revealed to the initiated, i.e. to the believers. Some translators have employed a phrase meaning ‘that which is not known’ (as the closest equivalent of secret), but this obviously will not do, for a mystery is not an unknown fact, but a specially revealed one. This particular value of the Greek expression can be expressed in various ways, e.g. ‘that which was hidden’ with the connotation that it is no longer so (San Mateo del Mar Huave), ‘that which has not been known’ with the implication that it is now known (Central Mazahua), ‘what is hard to understand,’ in which the meaning of ‘riddle,’ ‘difficult saying’ is approximated (Barrow Eskimo).

If, as is most generally the case, one assumes the relationship between ‘secret’ and ‘Kingdom’ to be an objective one, the translation may be ‘what was previously hidden about God’s rule’ (San Mateo del Mar Huave), ‘you have learned what was not formerly known about God’s government’ (Sapo), and ‘secret about how God rules’ (Copainalá Zoque).

If the appositional interpretation is followed, the problems of rendering are much greater, e.g. ‘learned about the secret, and the secret is how God rules.’

Those outside if translated literally may mean nothing more than ‘those outside the house’ or ‘those outside the village.’ In many languages the contrasting expression with ‘you’ is simply ‘the others’ (Yaka) or ‘other people.’

Everything may be rendered as ‘all knowledge’ or ‘all the truth,’ e.g. ‘other people receive all the knowledge in likeness-stories.’

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 .