purple

The Greek that is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec.

In Kasua was a little bit more involved, as Rachel Greco recalls (in The PNG Experience):

“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.

“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.

“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.

“God did not disappoint.

“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.

“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.

“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.

“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?

“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.

“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”

fine leather

The Hebrew that is translated as “fine leather” or “badger/porpoise skin” in English is translated in Kutu as ng’hwembe ya mhala or “skins of bushbuck” (for bushbuck, see here ). (Source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

In Yao, it is translated as “soft leather of a big sea animal.” (Source: UBS, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)

The English Jewish Orthodox ArtScroll Tanakh translation (publ. 2011) transliterates it as tachash-hide. (Source: Zetzsche)

See also fine leather.

Translation commentary on Exod 35:23

And every man with whom was found is quite literal. It is better to say, as Good News Translation renders it, “Everyone who had.” The verb found carries the implied meaning of “finding by chance,” so New American Bible has “Everyone who happened to have,” and New Jerusalem Bible has “all those who happened to own.” Blue or purple or scarlet stuff is the same phrase first used in 25.4. (See the comment there.) Fine linen is just one word, which is mistranslated as “fine twined linen” in 25.4. Good News Translation again places this first in the list, as in verse 6. Goats’ hair, tanned rams’ skins, and goatskins are all discussed at 25.4-5. Note that goatskins is no longer considered an accurate translation of the Hebrew techashim, which Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, and New Revised Standard Version render as “fine leather.”

Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .