Jesus was teaching the people. The people sat and listened to him. Jesus’ mother, brothers and sisters came there. There were a lot of people. The mother, brothers and sisters could not come near. Then they asked the people to tell Jesus:
— We have come. Come to us!
The people told Jesus:
— Your mother, brothers and sister have come. Come to them.
Jesus replied:
— Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?
Then Jesus pointed to the people who were listening to him and said:
— Here is my mother! Here are my brothers! Whoever listens to God and does his will is my mother, brother and sister!
Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):
Иисус учил народ. Люди сидели и слушали его. Туда пришли мать, братья и сестры Иисуса. Было много народа. Мать, братья и сестры не могли подойти. Тогда они попросили людей передать Иисусу:
— Мы пришли. Подойди к нам!
Люди передали Иисусу:
— Твоя мать, братья и сестра пришли. Подойди к ним.
Иисус ответил:
— А кто моя мать? Кто мои братья?
Потом Иисус показал на людей, которые его слушали, и сказал:
— Вот моя мать! Вот мои братья! Кто слушает Бога и исполняет Его волю, тот мне мать, брат и сестра!
Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.
As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff.), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.
Here, the crowd (or individuals within the crowd) addresses Jesus with the formal pronoun, expressing respect.
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 3:32:
Uma: “At that time many people were around Yesus, they said to him: ‘Teacher, your (sing.) mother and relatives, they are outside searching for you (sing.).'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Na, very-many people were sitting surrounding Isa. Then someone told him, he said, ‘Sir, your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “There were very many people sitting around Jesus, and the people said to Jesus, ‘Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want you to go out.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Therefore the many-people who were sitting surrounding him said, ‘Your (sing.) mother and your (sing.) brothers are outside having-you (sing.) -called.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “for inside was full of people. Really many were sitting around Jesus. Without anything further, Jesus was told that his mother and younger-siblings were there outside. They were causing him to come out.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
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.
After hē mētēr sou ‘your mother’ Tischendorf, Nestle, Soden, Vogels, and Kilpatrick add kai hai adelphai sou ‘and your sisters’: this clause is omitted by Textus Receptus, Westcott and Hort, Taylor, Lagrange, Merk, Revised Standard Version. Since the manuscript evidence is not decisive one way or the other, internal evidence will determine whether or not the words should be included.
Exegesis:
idou (cf. 1.2) ‘look,’ ‘see’: should not be omitted (as is done by Revised Standard Version).
exō zētousin se ‘outside they are asking for you.’
exō ‘outside’: ordinarily taken with ‘mother and brothers’: ‘your mother and brothers are outside.’ Moffatt, however, joins it to the verb, ‘wanting you outside.’
zēteō ‘search for,’ ‘ask,’ ‘request’: here in the latter sense of ‘asking,’ ‘wanting’: they were not looking for him since they knew him to be there. In Mark zēteō is used in both ways: (1) ‘search for,’ ‘seek’ (1.37; 14.55; 16.6); with the idea of ‘examine,’ ‘consider’ (11.18; 14.1, 11); (2) ‘want,’ ‘request,’ ‘ask’ (3.32; 8.11, 12); with the idea of ‘attempt,’ ‘try’ (12.12).
Translation:
Though the equivalent of Greek idou ‘behold,’ ‘look,’ ‘pay attention’ should be rendered in some manner, it is not always easy to find just the right introductory particle. Probably, the meaning here is really not ‘look,’ but rather a kind polite way in which the crowd could interrupt Jesus, in order to call his attention to the request of mother and brothers. One must choose a form which would be appropriate for the context, e.g. ‘listen’ (Tzeltal), ‘but listen’ (Shilluk).
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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