Mark 1:29-39 in Russian Sign Language

Following is the translation of Mark 1:29-39 into Russian Sign Language with a back-translation underneath:


Source: Russian Bible Society / Российское Библейское Общество

House of Prayer. Jesus came out of there. He had two disciples with him, James and John. They came to the house of Simon and Andrew. Simon’s mother-in-law was there. She had a fever. She was sick and lying down. Jesus went into the house. And heard that his mother-in-law was lying sick. And Jesus went in and saw her lying there. He took her by the hand and began to lift her up. The mother-in-law got up and suddenly found that there was no fever! She was healthy! She was very happy. And she began cheerfully to prepare food and distribute it.

There were many people gathered in the city of Capernaum. They were all waiting for the sun to set. There were many sick people there who were possessed by demons. Many people were brought to Simon’s house. The sick were being put together and they took up all the space around Simon’s house. They waited for Jesus to come out. Jesus came out and treated the sick: He healed one, cured another, cast out a demon from a demon possessed man. The demons inside the possessed wanted to talk about Jesus, but he forbade them! Jesus healed one, another, and a third. He cast out demons from one man and another. And all this was until late at night.

Early in the morning, when the sun had just risen, Jesus quietly went out of Simon’s house and looked for a deserted place. Jesus began to pray earnestly to God. And Simon and the men began to look for Jesus everywhere, and they searched and searched and searched, and finally they found him. And they said:

— There are people there, they are all waiting for you. Let’s go!

Jesus answered them:

— No. I came here, why? I need to tell everyone about God. You follow me.

There are many different villages in Galilee. Jesus came to these villages – one, another, another, another — went into the house of prayer of the Jews, taught there, cast out demons from people who were possessed by demons. So he came to many villages.

Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):

Дом молитвы. Иисус вышел оттуда. С ним были два ученика Иаков и Иоанн. Они пришли к дому Симона и Андрея. Там была теща Симона. У нее повысилась температура. Она заболела и лежала. Иисус зашел в дом. И услышал, что теща лежит больная. Ииусу зашел и видит, что она лежит. Он взял ее за руку и стал поднимать. Теща поднялась и вдруг обнаружила, что температуры нет! Она здоровая! Она очень обрадовалась. И она начала бодро готовить еду и раздавать ее.

В городе Капернауме собралось много людей. Они все ждали, когда солнце зайдет. Там было очень много больных, одержимых бесами. Многих людей приносили к дому Симона. Больных складывали, они заняли все место вокруг дома Симона. Они ждали, когда Иисус выйдет. Иисус вышел и лечил больных: одного исцелил, другого исцелил, из одержимого бесом изгнал беса. Бесы внутри одержимых хотели говорить об Иисусе, но Он запрещал им! Исцелял Иисус одного, другого, третьего. Бесов изгонял из одного, другого человека. И все это было до глубокой ночи.

Рано утром, когда только солнце взошло, Иисус тихонько вышел из дома Симона и искал пустынное место. Иисус начал усердно молиться Богу. А Симон и его люди стали искать Иисуса повсюду, искали-искали и, наконец, нашли. И сказали:

— Там люди, они все ждут тебя. Пойдем!

Иисус им ответил:

— Нет. Я пришел сюда, зачем? Мне нужно всем рассказать о Боге. Вы идите за мной.

В Галилее есть много разных селений. Иисус приходил в эти селения — в одно, другое, третье — заходил в дом молитвы евреев, учил там, изгонял бесов из людей, одержимых бесами. Так он приходил во многие селения.

Back-translation by Luka Manevich

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inclusive vs. exclusive pronoun (Mark 1:38)

Many languages distinguish between inclusive and exclusive first-person plural pronouns (“we”). (Click or tap here to see more details)

The inclusive “we” specifically includes the addressee (“you and I and possibly others”), while the exclusive “we” specifically excludes the addressee (“he/she/they and I, but not you”). This grammatical distinction is called “clusivity.” While Semitic languages such as Hebrew or most Indo-European languages such as Greek or English do not make that distinction, translators of languages with that distinction have to make a choice every time they encounter “we” or a form thereof (in English: “we,” “our,” or “us”).

For this verse, translators typically select the inclusive form (including the disciples).

Source: Velma Pickett and Florence Cowan in Notes on Translation January 1962, p. 1ff.

complete verse (Mark 1:38)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 1:38:

  • Uma: “He said to them: ‘Let us go to the other close towns so I can carry the Word of God there also. Because that is my purpose in coming to the world.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Isa said to them, ‘Let us (incl.) go to the other villages nearby so that I can also proclaim there. For that is hep my purpose in coming to the world.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “But as for Jesus, he said to them, ‘Let’s go to the neighboring villages so that I might preach there also, for the reason I came here is so that I might preach to people.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “But he said, ‘Let’s go nevertheless to the surrounding towns so that I can go preach there also, because that was my purpose in coming here.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “But Jesus replied, saying, ‘It’s necessary that we (incl.) also go to the nearby towns, so that I can also teach there. Because this is my purpose here in the world.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Shipibo-Conibo: “Then he told them: Let’s go to the not-far villages; that there too I speak the word. Actually to do that I have come-out.” (Source: James Lauriault in The Bible Translator 1951, p. 32ff. )
  • Balinese: “Then He said: ‘Let us go to the other places. to the villages that are near by, in order that I may preach to people there too. For that reason I went out.'” (Source: J.L. Swellengrebel in The Bible Translator 1950 p. 75ff. )

Translation commentary on Mark 1:38

Text:

allachou ‘elsewhere’ is omitted by Textus Receptus; all modern editions of the Greek text, however, include it.

Exegesis:

agōmen (13.11; 14.42) ‘let us go’: the subjunctive mode, in this context, has almost the force of an imperative. Here it is not so much a plea, a request, as an exhortation.

allachou (only here in the N.T.) ‘elsewhere.’ Arndt & Gingrich prefer the meaning ‘in another direction’ for this passage.

eis tas echomenas kōmopoleis ‘to the neighboring towns.’

tas echomenas (cf. Lk. 13.33, Acts 20.15, 21.26) ‘neighboring.’ The present participle of the verb echomai ‘have’ is used in the specialized sense of ‘next,’ ‘adjoining,’ ‘neighboring’ either with reference to time or to space.

kōmopolis (only here in the N.T.) ‘town,’ ‘village,’ ‘market town’ . Swete quotes Lightfoot who defines the word as referring to a small country town.

kai ekei ‘and there’: kai here has the meaning of ‘also.’

kēruxō ‘I may proclaim,’ ‘I may preach’ (see v. 4).

exēlthon ‘I came out.’ The ordinary meaning of ‘I came out (from Capernaum)’ is understood by most commentators (Gould, Turner, Rawlinson, Manson, The Modern Speech New Testament); Vincent Taylor takes it to mean ‘I came out (on the Galilean mission).’ Swete and Lagrange, however, see a theological meaning ‘I came forth (from the Father)’; this meaning, however, has not commended itself to many (although it appears that Luke understood the words in this sense; at least that is what Lk. 4.43 means).

Translation:

If it is necessary to be more specific in the pronominal reference he and them may be translated by the appropriate noun expressions. However, all such substitutions, whether of nouns for pronouns or pronouns for nouns must conform to the syntactic requirements of the receptor language in question.

Towns (in Greek a compound word meaning literally ‘village-city’) in this context refers to places half-way between cities and villages. In some languages this would be ‘big villages’ and in others ‘small cities,’ depending of course upon the more acceptable way of designating such a place.

For preach see 1.4, but note that in this context there is no object of the verb. In many languages, however, one must add a grammatical object to the verb of speaking, e.g. ‘to hand down the Way’ (Union Version in Chinese), ‘declare the word’ (Kekchi), or ‘speak God’s word’ (Kpelle).

If it is possible to preserve the ambiguity of ‘that is why I came out,’ well and good, but for the most part one must be more specific about the meaning of came out, hence stating specifically either ‘I came to this earth’ or ‘I came out of the city.’ The second meaning is recommended, though some translations have followed the first, e.g. Balinese.

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 .