complete verse (Mark 13:2)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 13:2:

  • Uma: “Yesus said: ‘You (sing.) see all these big houses? There won’t be a single rock that is left stacked up. It will all be destroyed.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Isa said to them, ‘This big temple will finally fall. There is a day in the future, when none of those stones placed-on-top-of-each-other (magbangkat-bangkat) will be left here, but all will be scattered.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus said to him, he said, ‘That large church built of stone, in the future not even one stone will be sitting on top of another, for they will all be scattered.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘Yes granted,’ said Jesus, ‘you are seeing all these large buildings, but in the future they will all be scattered, because not even a single stone will remain in its place.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Jesus replied, saying, ‘As for these big buildings which you are looking at now, all will be destroyed. For the day will come when no stone/rock will be left on the rock it is stacked on. All will be caused to collapse.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 13:2

Text:

Before lithos ‘stone’ Westcott & Hort, Souter, Soden, Vogels (in brackets), Lagrange, and Taylor add hōdē ‘here,’ which is omitted by Textus Receptus, Tischendorf, Nestle, Merk, and Kilpatrick.

Exegesis:

ou mē aphethē ‘will not be left’: the double negative is emphatic. For aphiēmi ‘leave’ cf. 2.5.

ou mē kataluthē ‘will not be torn down’: also emphatic. The sense of the two clauses is, ‘No two stones will be left standing together’ – so thorough will the destruction of the Temple be.

kataluō (14.58; 15.29) ‘destroy,’ ‘demolish,’ ‘tear down.’

Translation:

Said may be ‘replied,’ if the point of view in the receptor language is the previous exclamation, or ‘asked,’ if what follows governs the form of the verb introducing direct discourse.

Great is to be understood in terms of size, not importance.

The Greek text does not mean that no two stones will be left one on top of another (that is to say, Jesus did not prophesy that the stones would all be spread out singly on the ground), but that no two joining stones would be left together. In Copainalá Zoque this is well rendered by ‘will not remain a stone on stones’ companion.’ One may also translate this prophecy as ‘no two stones will be left together; they will all be thrown down.’ In Tzeltal the relationships of the stones in the first part of the expression is made somewhat more explicit by the phrase ‘these stones that are built up.’

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 .