devil

The Greek that is translated in English as “devil” is sometimes translated with indigenous specific names, such as “the avaricious one” in Tetelcingo Nahuatl, “the malicious deity” in Toraja-Sa’dan (source: Reiling / Swellengrebel), or in Yoruba as èṣù. “Èṣù is thought of as bringing evil, but also as giving protection. The birth of a child may be attributed to him, as the names given to some babies show, Èṣùbiyi (Èṣù brought this forth), and Èṣùtoyin (Èṣù is worthy of praise).” (Source: John Hargreaves in The Bible Translator 1965, p. 39ff. )

Other translations include:

  • Muna: Kafeompu’ando seetani or “Master of the evil-spirits” (source: René van den Berg)
  • Mairasi: owe er epar nan or “headman of malevolent spirits” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Central Subanen: Palin or “Perverter” (incl. in 2 Cor. 6:15) (source: Robert Brichoux in OPTAT 1988/2, p. 80ff. )
  • Huehuetla Tepehua: “chief of demons”
  • Ojitlán Chinantec: as “head of the worldlings” (source for the last two: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125).
  • Mandarin Chinese móguǐ (魔鬼), literally “magical ghost.” This is a term that was adopted from Buddhist sources into early Catholic writings and later also by Protestant translators. (Source: Zetzsche 1996, p. 32)
In Lak and Shughni it is translated with terms of feminine gender. Vitaly Voinov tells this story (click or tap here to see the rest of this insight):

“In the Lak language of Dagestan, the names ‘Iblis’ and ‘sheytan’ (referring to Satan and his minions, respectively) in this language were borrowed from the Arabic Islamic tradition, but they entered Lak as feminine nouns, not masculine nouns. This means that they grammatically function like nouns referring to females in Lak; in other words, Laks are likely to think of Iblis as a woman, not a man, because of the obligatory grammatical patterning of Lak noun classes. Thus, when the team explained (in Russian) what the Lak translation of Jesus’ wilderness temptation narrative at the beginning of Matthew 4 said, it sounded something like the following: ‘After this, the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Iblis… .The temptress came to Jesus, and she said to Him…’

“Since this information (that the devil is a female spirit) is part of the very name used for Satan in Lak, nothing can really be done about this in the translation. The Lak translator did not think that the feminine gender of Iblis should cause any serious misunderstandings among readers, so we agreed to leave it in the translation. Prior to this, I had never heard about languages in which the devil is pictured as a woman, but recently I was told by a speaker of the Shughni language that in their language Sheytan is also feminine. This puts an interesting spin on things. The devil is of course a spirit, neither male nor female in a biologically-meaningful sense. But Bible translators are by nature very risk-aversive and, where possible, want to avoid any translation that might feed misleading information to readers. So what can a translator do about this? In many cases, such as the present one, one has to just accept the existing language structure and go on.”

kingdoms of the world

The Greek that is translated as “kingdoms of the world” is translated in Quetzaltepec Mixe with a phrases denoting “rich empires” rather than a collection of all the ethnic groups.

complete verse (Luke 4:5)

Following are a number of back-translations of Luke 4:5:

  • Noongar: “Then the Devil took him up. In one moment, he saw everything, all the countries of all the kings of the World.” (Source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Uma: “After that, the King of Evil-ones carried him going to a high place. In just the blinking of an eye he showed him all the kingdoms in the world,” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Then Isa was taken by the leader of demons up to a very high place and he showed him all the places/countries in the world in one-shutting of the eye.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And then Satan took Jesus to a very high mountain and in a wink of an eye he showed him all of the kingdoms here on the earth.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When that was finished, then the Diablo led him to a high place and in-a-moment showed him all the nations in the world.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Another thing Satanas did was he caused Jesus to accompany him to a high mountain. And then he caused him to view in one glance all the kingdoms here under the heavens.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

pronoun for "God"

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 Kouya, Godié, Northern Grebo, Eastern Krahn, Western Krahn, and Guiberoua Béte, all languages of the Kru family in Western Africa, a different kind of systems of pronouns is used (click or tap here to read more):

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.

Translation: Chinese

在现代汉语中，第三人称单数代词的读音都是一样的（tā），但是写法并不一样，取决于性别以及是否有生命，即男性为“他”，女性为“她”，动物、植物和无生命事物为“它”（在香港和台湾的汉语使用，动物则为“牠”）。这些字的部首偏旁表明了性别（男人、女人、动物、无生命事物），而另一偏旁通常旁提示发音。

到1930年为止，基督教新教《圣经》经过整整一百年的翻译已经拥有了十几个译本，当时的一位圣经翻译者王元德新造了一个“神圣的”代词“祂”，偏旁“礻”表示神明。一般汉语读者会立即知道这字的发音是tā，而这个偏旁表示属灵的事物，因此他们明白这个字指出，三位一体的所有位格都没有性别之分，而单单是上帝。

然而，最重要的新教圣经译本（1919年的《和合本》）和天主教圣经译本（1968年的《思高圣经》）都没有采用“祂”；虽然如此，许多其他的圣经译本采用了这个字，另外还广泛出现在赞美诗和其他基督信仰的书刊中。（资料来源：Zetzsche）

《吕振中译本》的几个早期版本也使用“祂”来指称“上帝”；这个译本的《新约》于1946年译成，整部《圣经》于1970年完成。克拉默斯（Kramers）指出：“‘他’的这种新写法（即‘祂’）产生了一个小问题，就是在指称耶稣的时候，是否一律使用这个敬语代词？《吕振中译本》遵循的原则是，在称呼耶稣这个人的时候，用一般的‘他’，而在称呼耶稣神性的时候，特别是升天之后的耶稣，则用尊称‘祂’。”

Translator: Simon Wong

Translation commentary on Luke 4:5

Exegesis:

kai anagagōn auton ‘and after leading him up.’ Subject is ho diabolos. For anagō cf. on 2.22. Commentators differ as to the nature of the event described in this phrase and the next. Some understand it as an inward imaginative or, visionary experience (cf. Manson, Creed) or as an experience in thought but others think of a real lifting up into the air (cf. Maclean Gilmour) or to some high place (cf. Grundmann, Klostermann). As Acts 8.39 shows for Luke (and his readers) such events are real and not experiences in mind or thought only. The same applies to vv. 9-12. Since anagō usually means ‘to bring to a high place’ and not ‘to lift up in the air’ it appears preferable to understand it here in that sense too.

edeixen autō pasas tas basileias tēs oikoumenēs ‘he showed him all the kingdoms of the world.’ For basileia cf. on 1.33; here in the local meaning of ‘kingdom’; for oikoumenē cf. on 2.1; here in the literal meaning of ‘the inhabited earth’ and not restricted to the Roman empire.

deiknumi ‘to point out,’ ‘to show,’ ‘to explain.’

en stigmē chronou ‘in a moment of time.’

stigme ‘prick,’ ‘point,’ metaphorically of time ‘moment,’ ‘instant.’

Translation:

Took him up, i.e. took him with him (or, led him) to a high place.

Showed him, or, ‘caused/gave him to see,’ ‘pointed out to him.’

Kingdoms, i.e. regions ruled by a king (cf. on 1.33), but since the reference is rather to the locality than to the government such renderings as, ‘countries,’ ‘districts’ (Pohnpeian), ‘dominions’ (Balinese), are also acceptable.

World, or, ‘earth.’ That the reference is to the inhabited world (see Exegesis), need not be specified when the context implies a reference to human habitation, as does “kingdoms” here, or to human beings, as is the case in 21.26.

In a moment of time, or, ‘in a very short time,’ “in a flash” (New English Bible).

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.