The Greek that is translated into English as “delivered (to us)” or “handed down (to us)” is rendered as “we had heard them from the mouth of men who…” (Sranan Tongo), “to make known” (Kannada), “to show causing (us) to know” (Thai) or “to cause-to-receive” (Balinese, using a verb that also has the meaning “to bequeath an inheritance”).
inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Luke 1:2)
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 either select the inclusive form (including Theophilus) (according to Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.) or the exclusive form (according to SIL International Translation Department (1999)).
M. John (in The Bible Translator 1976, p. 237ff. ) explains the difficulty of the choice this way: “Here the translator working in a language with the two forms of we has to make his choice, at least in part on the basis of the answer to the question whether Theophilus was, at the time of Luke’s writing, a Christian. The choice of the form of we and the translation of the last part of the paragraph (Luke 1:4) are interconnected.”
complete verse (Luke 1:2)
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 1:2:
- Noongar: “They wrote true things on paper, everything people told us. These people have seen everything from the beginning and they told the Good News.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
- Uma: “What they wrote, it is the same as the story that was announced to us by people who had seen [with their] eyes all that happened from the beginning and who became carriers of the Lord’s Word.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
- Yakan: “It was written by them what was told to us (excl.) by those who saw what he did from the beginning, and they are the people who proclaim God’s Word.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
- Western Bukidnon Manobo: “They wrote down what was related to us people who were the ones who saw these works and were the ones who spread the Word of God.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
- Kankanaey: “What they wrote is indeed also what was related by those who saw it beginning-from the first and preached concerning the Lord Jesus.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
- Tagbanwa: “The things they wrote were what was related to us (excl.) by those who observed them from the past and who now go teaching concerning this which is being testified to.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Translation commentary on Luke 1:2
Exegesis:
kathōs paredosan hēmin ‘as handed down to us….’ Grammatically the object of paredosan is pragmata ‘things,’ to be understood from pragmatōn in v. 1. But because, properly understood, not the pragmata themselves were handed down but information or tradition concerning them, several translations resort to a more free rendering as e.g. “following the traditions handed down to us” (New English Bible), or “basing their work on the evidence” (Phillips).
kathōs ‘just as,’ stronger than hōs ‘as.’
paradidōmi ‘to hand over,’ ‘to turn over’; with regard to oral or written tradition ‘to hand down,’ ‘to pass on.’ Here probably of the oral transmission of the Gospel tradition.
hoi ap’ archēs autoptai kai hupēretai genomenoi tou logou ‘those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word,’ or ‘those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and became ministers of the word’ (cf. La Sainte Bible: Nouvelle version Segond révisée, Willibrord), dependent upon the interpretation of ap’ archēs and of the participle genomenoi.
ap’ archēs ‘from the beginning,’ i.e. of the pragmata i.e. of the life and ministry of Jesus, cf. Acts 1.21f. Since the preaching of the Gospel did not begin until after the ministry of Jesus as defined in Acts 1.21f, it is best to take ap’ archēs to refer to autoptai only and not to hupēretai tou logou as well. Furthermore the position of genomenoi between hupēratai and logou does not point to its going with both autoptai and hupēretai. Hence it is preferable to take ap’ archēs to modify autoptai ‘those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning’ and genomenoi to go with hupēretai tou logou ‘who became ministers of the word.’
autoptēs ‘eyewitness.’
hupēretēs (also 4.20) ‘servant,’ here with logos ‘word,’ i.e. the Gospel or the word of God (for logos in this sense cf. Acts 6.4; 11.19; for hupēretēs in this connection cf. Acts 26.16; 1 Cor 4.1), ‘preacher of the Gospel message.’
Translation:
They were delivered to us, or, ‘we had heard them from the mouth of men who…’ (Sranan Tongo). — To deliver, or, ‘to make known’ (Kannada), ‘to show causing (us) to know’ (Thai), ‘to cause-to-receive’ (Balinese, using a verb that also has the meaning ‘to bequeath an inheritance’).
From the beginning, or, specifying the reference, ‘from its beginning,’ ‘since those things began to happen,’ ‘from the very first of those things/events.’
Eyewitnesses may have to be expressed analytically, e.g. ‘people/those who saw with their own eyes,’ ‘people who witnessed with the seeing of their eyes’ (Tae,’ using a current idiomatic expression for ‘to see clearly,’ cf. ‘with the hearing of the ear’ for ‘to hear clearly’), ‘people in whose presence they happened’ (Apache). The object of ‘to see’ is “the things accomplished”, which may have to be said explicitly, e.g. adding ‘those things,’ or a pronominal preference.
Ministers refers to those who give the word the service it needs; hence e.g., ‘those who teach’ (Tboli), ‘those who convey/spread,’ ‘proclaimers of’ (Pampanga), ‘those who preach’ (Tagalog, South Bolivian Quechua, similarly Chinese, lit. ‘those who hand down the way,’ see below), or simply, ‘those who tell’ (Navajo, Apache).
The word is used here as a technical term. In several languages a literal rendering would be misleading, and still more so by its being combined here with the word ‘minister/servant,’ used also in an uncommon sense; hence such renderings as, ‘God’s word’ (Navajo, Apache), cf. on 5.1; or, ‘Gospel/Good News’ (New English Bible, Bahasa Indonesia, Balinese), ‘the word of the gospel’ (Kannada), ‘the holy word’ (Tamil). Chinese uses a cultural equivalent, ‘the way’ (tao), and ‘to hand down the way,’ in use for the teaching of the ancient sages, has become the normal term for proclaiming Christian doctrine.
Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.