divorce

In Ghari different words are used for a husband divorcing a wife and a wife divorcing a husband. (Source: David Clark)

In Mairasi the term that is used means “discard.” (Source: Enggavoter 2004)

adultery

The Greek that is translated as “adultery” (typically understood as “marital infidelity”) in English is (back-) translated in the following ways:

  • Highland Totonac: “to do something together”
  • Yucateco: “pair-sin”
  • Ngäbere: “robbing another’s half self-possession” (compare “fornication” which is “robbing self-possession,” that is, to rob what belongs to a person)
  • Kaqchikel, Chol: “to act like a dog”
  • Toraja-Sa’dan: “to measure the depth of the river of (another’s) marriage.”
  • North Alaskan Inupiatun: “married people using what is not theirs” (compare “fornication” which is “unmarried people using what is not theirs”) (source for this and all above: Bratcher / Nida)
  • In Purari: “play hands with” or “play eyes with”
  • In Hakha Chin the usual term for “adultery” applies only to women, so the translation for the Greek term that is translated into English as “adultery” was translated in Hakha Chin as “do not take another man’s wife and do not commit adultery.”
  • Chicahuaxtla Triqui: “talk secretly with spouses of our fellows”
  • Isthmus Zapotec: “go in with other people’s spouses”
  • Hopi: “tamper with marriage” (source for this and two above: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.)
  • In Falam Chin the term for “adultery” is the phrase for “to share breast” which relates to adultery by either sex. (Source for this and three above: David Clark)
  • In Ixcatlán Mazatec a specification needs to be made to include both genders. (Source: Robert Bascom)

See also adulterer, adulteress, and you shall not commit adultery.

complete verse (Mark 10:11)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 10:11:

  • Uma: “He said to them: ‘He who divorces his wife and marries again with another woman, he commits-adultery-against his first wife.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “He answered them, he said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another one, he commits adultery and he sins against his first wife.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus said to them, ‘A man who married another woman because he has divorced his wife, he sins against the wife he has divorced.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Jesus said, ‘Any man who divorces his wife and then marries another woman, he commits-adultery (lit. womans-with) and-so he sins against his wife.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “They were answered by Jesus, saying to them, ‘Whichever man will divorce his wife and marry someone else, he really has-behaved-immorally against that wife of his.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 10:11

Exegesis:

kai gamēsē allēn ‘and he should marry another’: the meaning is, naturally, ‘another woman’ (not ‘another wife’).

gameō (cf. 6.17) ‘marry.’

moichatai ep’ autēn ‘he commits adultery with reference to her’: the great majority of commentators and translators understand autēn ‘her’ to refer to the first woman, whom the husband divorced (not the second, whom he married). Lagrange: “with regard to her: for it is with respect to her and to her rights that the second act is (an act of) adultery.” Translator’s New Testament and N. Turner, however, understands it to mean ‘commits adultery with her’ (i.e. the second woman); Turner appeals to Septuagint Jer. 5.8 chremetizō epi ‘neigh after’: he cannot, however, cite any instance of Mark’s using epi with the accusative meaning ‘with.’

epi ‘upon,’ ‘with reference to’: in a hostile sense, ‘against’ (cf. its use with this meaning in 3.24, 25, 26; 13.12; 14.48).

Translation:

The clause introduced by whoever may be shifted to a conditional clause, as is required by many languages, ‘if any one does…, he….’

Against her is not only a difficult expression for exegesis, but also a complicated phrase to translate. In some languages the reference must be made more specific, to be meaningful at all, e.g. ‘commits adultery against the first woman’ (Amganad Ifugao). In Huastec one may say ‘commits sin against her.’ In Conob an idiomatic phrase is commonly used ‘did evil against her eyes,’ but in some languages (e.g. Yaka, Tzeltal) the phrase is best omitted, since ‘adultery’ is understood with reference to the first woman, and any attempt to translate this phrase is either highly redundant or is understood as applying somehow to the second woman.

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 .