1He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him, and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 10:1:
Uma: “Yesus left there and went to the land of Yudea and to the other side of the Yordan river. Many people again came surrounding him, and like usual he taught them.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “So-then Isa left from the land Jalil and went to the different-places there in Yahudiya and including to the places on the other side of the river Jordan. Again crowds of people gathered to him there. So-then they were taught by Isa, as he-used-to-do.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Jesus left the town of Capernaum, and he went to the province of Judea. Then he crossed the river Jordan, and there were many people that gathered together again to him. And since what he was doing was constantly teaching, he also taught those people.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Plural Jesus left there and they went to the region of Judea and then to the other-side of the Jordan river. The many-people surrounded them again and he taught them, because that was his custom.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Jesus and company left Galilea again. They went to the region of Judea and went on to the other side of the river Jordan. Well many people again gathered to him there. Well, like he had been doing all along, he taught them.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The name that is transliterated as “Judah” or “Judea” in English (referring to the son of Jacob, the tribe, and the territory) is translated in Spanish Sign Language as “lion” (referring to Genesis 49:9 and Revelation 5:5). This sign for lion is reserved for regions and kingdoms. (Source: John Elwode in The Bible Translator 2008, p. 78ff. and Steve Parkhurst)
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.
Instead of kai ‘and’ before peran tou Iordanou ‘beyond the Jordan’ of the great majority of the modern editions of the Greek text, Textus Receptus and Soden have dia tou ‘through the,’ so that the whole clause reads ‘through the other side of the Jordan.’
Exegesis:
anastas erchetai (cf. anastas apēlthen 7.24) ‘rising, he comes,’ i.e. ‘leaving that place (ekeithen ‘thence’) he went.’
horia (cf. 5.17) ‘boundaries,’ ‘region’: the phrase eis ta horia does not mean ‘to the boundaries’ but ‘into the region.’ The route indicated by the words of the text goes through Judea, across the river Jordan into Perea (cf. Goodspeed).
peran tou Iordanou (cf. 3.8; 4.35) ‘beyond the Jordan,’ ‘Perea.’
sumporeuontai palin ochloi pros auton ‘again crowds come together to him.’
sumporeuomai (only here in Mark) ‘go along with’; with reference to many people, as here, ‘come together,’ ‘flock,’ ‘gather.’
ochloi ‘crowds’: here only, in Mark, is the plural used.
eiōthei (only here in Mark) ‘he was accustomed’: the form eiōtha is the perfect of ethō but has a present sense ‘to be accustomed’: the pluperfect eiōthei, therefore, has an imperfect sense. The meaning here is not ‘as he had been accustomed,’ but ‘as he was accustomed,’ ‘as his custom was.’
Translation:
Beyond the Jordan identifies ‘the region on the other side of the Jordan’ (or ‘Jordan river,’ if a classifier is required).
Crowds involves certain difficulties, since in, many languages there are two types of plurals, aggregates and distributives. In Greek, however, it is not certain whether the plural actually denotes different crowds or whether it is a so-called augmentative plural, i.e. a plural which emphasizes the extent or size rather than the actual number of objects or occurrences. If, therefore, the Greek term ochloi is taken to mean simply the size of the crowd, then ‘many, many people’ or ‘very large crowd’ may be used. However, the use of the Greek form may indicate a distributive plural, implying that Jesus met with crowd after crowd wherever he went, in which case, of course, a distributive – whether of time or space – may be used. One must, however, avoid the mistake made in some languages of using an aggregate plural, for Jesus would not be addressing himself to several crowds at the same time.
As his custom was is translatable in many languages by a habitual, or customary, aspect of the verb. However, in some languages the idea of customary action can only be expressed by a separate verb phrase, e.g. ‘he was accustomed to teach; he began to teach again’ (Tzeltal).
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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