Apali: “God’s one with talk from the head” (“basically God’s messenger since head refers to any leader’s talk”) (source: Martha Wade)
Michoacán Nahuatl: “clean helper of God” (source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
Noongar: Hdjin-djin-kwabba or “spirit good” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Wè Northern (Wɛɛ): Kea ‘a “sooa or “the Lord’s soldier” (also: “God’s soldier” or “his soldier”) (source: Drew Maust)
Iwaidja: “a man sent with a message” (Sam Freney explains the genesis of this term [in this article): “For example, in Darwin last year, as we were working on a new translation of Luke 2:6–12 in Iwaidja, a Northern Territory language, the translators had written ‘angel’ as ‘a man with eagle wings’. Even before getting to the question of whether this was an accurate term (or one that imported some other information in), the word for ‘eagle’ started getting discussed. One of the translators had her teenage granddaughter with her, and this word didn’t mean anything to her at all. She’d never heard of it, as it was an archaic term that younger people didn’t use anymore. They ended up changing the translation of ‘angel’ to something like ‘a man sent with a message’, which is both more accurate and clear.”)
Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 4:10:
Noongar: “because the Bible says, ‘God will send his angels and they will save you’.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Uma: “Nothing will happen to you (sing.), because it is written in the Holy Book: ‘The Lord God orders his angels to protect you (sing.), so that you (sing.) do not come-to-harm/disaster.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “for it is written in the holy-book it says, ‘He has commanded his angels to watch over/care for you so that nothing bad will happen to you.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Because there is a written word of God which says, ‘God will cause His angels to help you,” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “because the written word of God says, ‘God will command his angels to take-care-of you (sing.).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “For isn’t is so that it is written as-you-know, saying, ‘God will order his angels to take care of you,” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Kinaray-A: “Did not the Scripture say that ‘God will order his angels to watch over you’?” (Source: Balbina Abadiano in Notes on Translation 1988, p. 40ff.)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff.) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal ta (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential ta (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff.)
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible, but most translations, especially those published in the 21st century, do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
See also this chapter in the World Atlas of Language Structures on different approaches to personal pronouns.
gegraptai gar ‘for it is written,’ cf. on v. 4. This time the quotation from the Old Testament comes from the devil in order to found the suggestion of v. 9.
tois aggelois autou enteleitai peri sou ‘he will give his angels orders about you.’ Subject of enteleitai is ho kurios ‘the Lord’ understood. The double reference to the person concerned, i.e. peri sou and se, the object of diaphulaxai (cf. next note), is unidiomatic in Greek. This is due to the fact that the clause is a rather literal rendering of the Hebrew of Ps. 91.11, which is perfectly idiomatic in Hebrew.
entellomai ‘to command,’ ‘to give orders.’
tou diaphulaxai se ‘in order to guard you,’ independent articular infinitive with final force.
diaphulassō ‘to guard,’ in the Septuagint especially of God’s care for man. Here the reference is rather to protection from danger.
(V. 11) kai hoti ‘and’ connects the second part of the quotation with the first, probably because the phrase ‘on all your ways’ is omitted in the quotation.
epi cheirōn arousin se ‘on their hands they will bear you up.’ Subject is hoi aggeloi ‘the angels’ understood from v. 10.
airō ‘to lift up,’ ‘to bear up,’ ‘to carry along’ as a continuation of bearing up. Different from Ps. 91.11f, the picture is here that of the angels lifting up somebody who throws himself down.
mēpote proskopsēs pros lithon ton poda sou ‘lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ This clause also applies only indirectly to the present situation, see above.
mēpote ‘lest,’ emphatic form of mē here in the sense of ‘in order to prevent that.’
proskoptō ‘to strike.’
Translation:
Give his angels charge of you, to guard you. Some renderings are more analytic, e.g. ‘say to/command his angels, “Guard him/this man” ,’ others more synthetic, e.g. ‘cause-to-take-care-with-reference-to his angels you,’ i.e. cause his angels to take care of you (Pohnpeian). For to guard, or, “to keep from harm” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation). — You here refers to man in general (as is clearly intended in the Psalm word quoted), not to the Messiah (as assumed in some versions). The repetition of this pronoun, is a literalism which should not be imitated at the cost of receptor language idiom.
(V. 11) The metaphorical meaning of the expressions used may have to be marked, e.g. by adding ‘as it were,’ ‘it will be as if.’
You strike your foot against a stone, or, ‘stumble-over a stone’ (Balinese); elsewhere ‘the/your foot’ has to become the subject of the clause.
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.