give thanks

The Greek that is translated as “give thanks” in English is Tzotzil as “saying to God: Because of you.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)

complete verse (Mark 14:23)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 14:23:

  • Uma: “After that he also took a glass full of anggur, he said thank you to God and he offered it to them. They all drank from the glass.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “So-then he took a glass and after he had given thanks to God, he gave it to them and they all drank.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “Then he picked up a cup filled with grape wine, and he thanked God for it and handed it to them. And all of them drank from it.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “Then he took a cup filled-with grape juice (fermented or otherwise) and thanked God. Then he gave it to them and they all drank-some (lit. caused-it-to-be-dripped).” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “And then the cup is what he next held. When he finished his prayer of thanksgiving, he gave it to them. His disciples all drank.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

the last supper (image)

Click here to see the image in higher resolution.

Willy Wiedmann, the artist, commented on this picture: “In spite of some difficulty, and unlike Leonardo da Vinci [see here ] I did not set my last supper in a theatrical scene with Jesus in the center behind an elongated table with all the disciples, with two at each end so that that there are 11 seated behind the table. And not like the panel by Juan de Juanes (1623-79) [see here ] in which the six disciples left and right are very dynamic figures. And also not like Martin Schongauer’s Last Supper [see here ] with a slightly shorter table (also incidentally very similar to Juanes in the attitudes of the figures) and two figures seen from the back in the foreground of the panel. Instead I have given the Master the middle place to the foreground, with his back to us to finally leave the controversial Jesus-existential questions unanswered. Slightly symbolically it means that he is leaving his world. The iris color is meant to transfer the rainbow to Jesus, that God once linked to Noah (my kingdom is not of this world). I attempted to present answers that correspond to the characters of each individual.”

Image and text taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

For other images of Willy Wiedmann paintings in TIPs, see here.

 

Painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963),
Copyright by the Catholic University Peking, China.

Text under painting translated from Literary Chinese into English:

Beginning of the Holy Communion
You have this as food and this is my body.

Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.

the last supper (icon)

Following is a contemporary Ukrainian Orthodox icon of the last supper by Ulyana Tomkevych.

 

Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )

Translation commentary on Mark 14:23

Text:

Before potērion ‘cup’ Textus Receptus and Kilpatrick add to ‘the,’ which is omitted by all other modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

potērion (cf. 7.4) ‘cup’ containing the wine.

eucharistēsas (cf. 8.6; 6.41) ‘giving thanks’: as already seen, the same as eulogēsas ‘blessing.’ Jeremias calls the verb eucharisteō a “Graecising” of the Semitic term eulogeō. Bengel (on Mt. 26.26) says of the two: “Each verb explains the other.”

epion ex autou pantes ‘they all drank from it,’ i.e. ‘they all drank some of its contents’: the cup was passed from disciple to disciple until they had all drunk of the wine.

Translation:

Had given thanks may require an object, e.g. ‘gave thanks to God.’

Gave it means ‘he gave the cup.’

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 .