eternal life

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The Greek that is translated in English as “eternal life” is translated in various ways:

Lloyd Peckham explains the Mairasi translation: “In secret stories, not knowable to women nor children, there was a magical fruit of life. If referred to vaguely, without specifying the specific ‘fruit,’ it can be an expression for eternity.”

See also eternity / forever and salvation.

in him

The Greek phrase that is used numerous times in 1 John and that is translated into English as “in Him” is translated in Northern One (Wolwale) as “really stick to and really remain good friends with God.”

John Nystrom (in The PNG Experience) explains:

“In the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, several people gathered to conduct the final checking on the books of 1, 2, and 3 John and Jude. They were challenged to find the best way to write the description of a believer’s intimate union with Christ. The writer of 1 John says we are ‘in Him.’ That’s easy to express in English, but not in languages that only use ‘in’ for things inside other things, but don’t use it in a metaphorical way. How would you express this concept without using the word ‘in’?

“Unsure how to translate this, the team asked Wolwale local language expert Philip Musi for advice. Philip explained while demonstrating by putting his hand firmly to a nearby post, ‘It’s like a lizard who has really stuck himself to a tree.’ Everyone in the room knew exactly what that looked like.

“Now the revised draft of 1 John 2:28a in the Northern One Wolwale language reads: Kongkom uporo kinini, pone samo pangkana ka samo paipe fori uporo plau God.

“A rough English back translation is: ‘My good children, you-all really stick to and really remain good friends with God.'”

complete verse (1 John 3:15)

Following are a number of back-translations of 1 John 3:15:

  • Uma: “All people who hate their relatives, they are the same as killers [emphatic]. And you know, relatives, that murders do not get good life forever.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Whoever hates his fellow-man it is as if he has killed. And you know that a murderer has no everlasting life.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Anyone who acts against his companions, God considers him to be like a murderer; and we (incl.) know that if there is a person who wants to murder, he has not yet come to own life forever.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “For the one who hates his brother/cousin is like the murderer just the same, and we know of course that the murderer, he doesn’t have the life that has no end.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Because whoever ignores/spurns his sibling in believing, he is the same as a murderer of his fellowman. Isn’t it indeed so that you know already that, whoever is a murderer of his fellowman, he really doesn’t have life which is without ending?” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “Everyone who hates his brother is like as though he were a murderer. And you know that not one murderer meets up with the new life.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
  • Yatzachi Zapotec: “Any of us if we hate our fellows, before God we are like murderers. And we know that no one who is like that has eternal life.”
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “He who hates his sibling is a murderer. And you know that there is no murderer who has (possesses) the new life.”
  • Tzotzil: “If we hate the brethren, we have already become killers. You know that whoever kills he has not received life forever.” (Source for this and two above: John Beekman in Notes on Translation 12, November 1964, p. 1ff.)

Translation commentary on 1 John 3:15

The author is alluding to the rule given in Gen 9.6, “he that sheds the blood of a man, for that man his blood shall be shed” (New English Bible). He applies this rule figuratively to the new life of the Christian. The verse probably serves to explain verse 14; hence “for everyone who hates…” (New English Bible). Most versions, however, do not specify a connection.

Who hates his brother, see comments on 2.9.

Is a murderer is to be taken as a metaphorical application of verses 11-12. The clause serves to make clear that hatred is close to murder, being the first step toward it and belonging to the same moral category.

Murderer: in form the Greek term, literally “man-killer,” is not related to the verb used in verse 12. In meaning it is the more generic of the two in that it does not suggest violent passion. If the word is to be rendered by a phrase, one may say ‘one who kills people.’

You know: some versions give a less prominent position to this phrase by subordinating it; for example, “no murderer, as you know, has eternal life” (New English Bible). This has the advantage of contrasting more closely and directly the preceding and the present clause, which say who is a murderer, and what a murderer cannot have, respectively.

No murderer has eternal life abiding in him: for the construction “to have eternal life” compare comments on “to have … sin” in 1.8. The expression means that one is in a condition characterized as, and influenced by, eternal life or, otherwise stated, that one has the source and principle of eternal life in oneself. The present tense of “to have” has durative force. The participial phrase abiding in him does not add a new fact but serves to emphasize the concept of duration.

Possible restructurings and adjustments of the clause are ‘a murderer cannot be and remain in possession of eternal/true life,’ ‘eternal/true life cannot be and continue to be dwelling in a murderer,’ ‘to kill people and to live for the age to come can never go together.’ For eternal life see comments on 1.1-2; for abiding in see comments on 2.14.

Quoted with permission from Haas, C., de Jonge, M. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on The First Letter of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1972. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .