The region of Galilee. Jesus came to Galilee, to the lake, with his disciples. Jesus had healed many people before, made them well, and cast out many demons from people. Word of his work spread throughout Galilee. They also knew about him in Judea, in the city of Jerusalem, in Idumea, near the Jordan River, also in the city of Tyre and Sidon — in all these places people heard about Jesus. And people were coming to Jesus from everywhere. Jesus saw that there were many people coming and going to him. So he asked his disciples for a boat so that he could get into it and sail away from the shore when the crowds became too great. Many different sick people came to him. They all hoped that they could at least touch Jesus and become well. Jesus healed and cured everyone. Even the demons from the possessed people ran away when they saw Jesus. Some demons were shouting:
— Jesus! You are the son of God!
Jesus forbade the demons:
— Be silent! Don’t you dare talk about me.
Original Russian back-translation (click or tap here):
Область Галилея. Иисус пришел в Галилею, к озеру, вместе с учениками. До этого Иисус очень многих людей исцелял, делал их здоровыми, также изгнал множество бесов из людей. По всей Галилее разнесся слух о его делах. Также знали о нем в Иудее, в городе Иерусалиме, в Идумее, возле реки Иордан, также в городе Тир и Сидон — во всех этих местах люди слышали об Иисусе. И люди отовсюду шли к Иисусу. Иисус видел, что к нему все идут и идут люди, народа очень много. Тогда он попросил у учеников лодку, чтобы сесть в нее и отплыть от берега, когда народу станет слишком много. Приходило к нему множество разных больных. Все они надеялись, что они смогут хотя бы прикоснуться к Иисусу и стать здоровыми. Иисус всех исцелял и исцелял. Даже бесы из одержимых людей убегали, завидев Иисуса. Некоторые бесы кричали:
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 3:9:
Uma: “He healed many people that were sick, with the result that the people crowded-each-other to get close to him, wanting to touch him. From the manyness of the people, that is why he ordered his disciples to prepare a boat for him to ride, so that he would not be crowded by the people.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Isa told his disciples to put the boat that he would ride in into the water (lebbes) so that he wouldn’t be pressed/jostled by the crowds.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And Jesus told his disciples to get a boat so that he might get in it if he would be pressed upon by the very many people.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “Because of the many-ness of the people, he told his disciples to go get a boat for him to sit-in lest the many-people squeeze him.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Well since it was like that, Jesus told his disciples to ready a boat for maybe he would need one to get in so that he wouldn’t be squashed by those people who were arriving in an endless mass.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
The Greek that is often translated as “disciple” in English typically follows three types of translation: (1) those which employ a verb ‘to learn’ or ‘to be taught’, (2) those which involve an additional factor of following, or accompaniment, often in the sense of apprenticeship, and (3) those which imply imitation of the teacher.
Following are some examples (click or tap for details):
Waorani: “one who lives following Jesus” (source: Wallis 1973, p. 39)
Ojitlán Chinantec: “learner” (Source: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125.)
Javanese: “pupil” or “companion” (“a borrowing from Arabic that is a technical term for Mohammed’s close associates”)
German: Jünger or “younger one” (source for this and one above: Reiling / Swellengrebel)
Germandas Buch translation by Roland Werner (publ. 2009-2022). “student” or “special student” (using the traditional German term Gnade)
Noongar: ngooldjara-kambarna or “friend-follow” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
French 1985 translation by Chouraqui: adept or “adept” (as in a person who is skilled or proficient at something). Watson (2023, p. 48ff.) explains (click or tap here to see more):
[Chouraqui] uses the noun “adept,” which is as uncommon in French as it is in English. It’s an evocative choice on several levels. First, linguistically, it derives — via the term adeptus — from the Latin verb adipiscor, “to arrive at; to reach; to attain something by effort or striving.” It suggests those who have successfully reached the goal of their searching, and implies a certain struggle or process of learning that has been gradually overcome. But it’s also a term with a very particular history: in the Middle Ages, “adept” was used in the world of alchemy, to describe those who, after years of labor and intensive study, claimed to have discovered the Great Secret (how to turn base metals like lead into gold); it thus had the somewhat softened meaning of “someone who is completely skilled in all the secrets of their field.”
Historians of religion often use the term adept with reference to the ancient mystery religions that were so prevalent in the Mediterranean in the centuries around the time of Jesus. An adept was someone who, through a series of initiatory stages, had penetrated into the inner, hidden mysteries of the religion, who understood its rituals, symbols, and their meaning. To be an adept implied a lengthy and intensive master-disciple relationship, gradually being led further and further into the secrets of the god or goddess (Isis-Osiris, Mithras, Serapis, Hermes, etc.) — secrets that were never to be revealed to an outsider.
Is “adept” a suitable category in which to consider discipleship as we see it described in the Gospels? On some levels, the link is an attractive one, drawing both upon the social-religious framework of the ancient Mediterranean, and upon certain aspects of intimacy and obscurity/secrecy that we see in the relationship of Jesus and those who followed him. The idea that disciples are “learners” — people who are “on the way” — and that Jesus is portrayed as (and addressed as) their Master/Teacher is accurate. But the comparison is unsatisfactory on several other levels.
First, the Gospels portray Jesus’s ministry as a largely public matter — there is relatively little of the secrecy and exclusiveness that is normally associated with both the mystery cults and medieval alchemy. Jesus’s primary message is not destined for a small, elite circle of “initiates” — although the Twelve are privy to explanations, experiences and teachings that are not provided to “the crowds.” For example, in Matthew 13:10-13:
Then the disciples came and asked him, “Why do you speak to [the crowds] in parables?” He answered, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand.’”
Etymologically, adeptus suggests someone who “has arrived,” who has attained a superior level of understanding reserved for very few. However, what we see in the Gospels, repeatedly, is a general lack of comprehension of many of Jesus’s key teachings by many of those who hear him. Many of his more cryptic sayings would have been virtually incomprehensible in their original context, and would only make sense in retrospect, in the wake of the events of Jesus’s passion, death, and resurrection. The intense master-student relationship is also lacking: the Gospels largely portray “the disciples” as a loose (and probably fluctuating) body of individuals, with minimal structure or cohesion. Finally, there seems to be little scholarly consensus about the degree to which the mystery cults had made inroads in Roman-ruled Palestine during the decades of Jesus’s life. According to Everett Ferguson in his Backgrounds of Early Christianity.
Although Christianity had points of contact with Stoicism, the mysteries, the Qumran community, and so on, the total worldview was often quite different….So far as we can tell, Christianity represented a new combination for its time…. At the beginning of the Christian era a number of local mysteries, some of great antiquity, flourished in Greece and Asia Minor. In the first century A.D. the vonly mysteries whose extension may be called universal were the mysteries of Dionysus and those of the eastern gods, especially Isis.
And Norman Perrin and Dennis C. Duling note, in their book The New Testament:
Examples of such mystery religions could be found in Greece… Asia Minor… Syria-Palestine… Persia… and Egypt. Though the mysteries had sacred shrines in these regions, many of them spread to other parts of the empire, including Rome. There is no clearly direct influence of the mysteries on early Christianity, but they shared a common environment and many non-Christians would have perceived Christians as members of an oriental Jewish mystery cult.56
Given the sparse archaeological and literary evidence from this period regarding mystery cults in Roman Palestine, and the apparent resistance of many Palestinian Jews to religious syncretism, Chouraqui’s use of the noun adept implies a comparison between the historical Jesus and mystery cults that is doubtful, on both the levels of chronology and religious culture. Personally, I believe this choice suggests a vision of Jesus that distances him from the religious world of ancient Judaism, thus creating a distorted view of what spiritually inspired him. But the idea of the disciples as “learners” on a journey (as the Greek term suggests) is a striking one to consider; certainly, the Gospels show us the Twelve as people who are growing, learning, and developing…but who have not yet “arrived” at the fullness of their vocation.
Scot McKnight (in The Second Testament, publ. 2023) translates it into English as apprentice.
In Luang several terms with different shades of meaning are being used.
For Mark 2:23 and 3:7: maka nwatutu-nwaye’a re — “those that are taught” (“This is the term used for ‘disciples’ before the resurrection, while Jesus was still on earth teaching them.”)
For Acts 9:1 and 9:10: makpesiay — “those who believe.” (“This is the term used for believers and occasionally for the church, but also for referring to the disciples when tracking participants with a view to keeping them clear for the Luang readers. Although Greek has different terms for ‘believers’, ‘brothers’, and ‘church’, only one Luang word can be used in a given episode to avoid confusion. Using three different terms would imply three different sets of participants.”)
For Acts 6:1: mak lernohora Yesus wniatutunu-wniaye’eni — “those who follow Jesus’ teaching.” (“This is the term used for ‘disciples’ after Jesus returned to heaven.”)
Source: Kathy Taber in Notes on Translation 1/1999, p. 9-16.
In American Sign Language it is translated with a combination of the signs for “following” plus the sign for “group.” (Source: RuthAnna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“disciples” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
In British Sign Language a sign is used that depicts a group of people following one person (the finger in the middle, signifying Jesus). Note that this sign is only used while Jesus is still physically present with his disciples. (Source: Anna Smith)
“Disciple in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)
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.
hina ploiarion proskarterē autō ‘that a boat be ready for him’: in this clause hina does not denote purpose ‘in order that’ but simply indicates the content of the order given the disciples.
ploiarion (only here in Mark) ‘a boat’: the diminutive of ploion (cf. 1.19) ‘boat.’ It is not necessary to suppose, however, that a very exact distinction between the two is made by the evangelist.
proskartereō (only here in Mark) ‘attend constantly,’ ‘wait on’: used here of a boat it means ‘stand ready, be in constant attendance’ (cf. Gould).
hina mē thlibōsin auton ‘in order that they not crush him’: here is the purpose (hina ‘in order that’) of the command that a boat be at hand.
thlibō (7.14) ‘press upon,’ ‘crowd,’ ‘crush’: ‘they’ refers to ho ochlos ‘the crowd’ of the preceding clause.
etherapeusen (cf. 1.34) ‘he healed’: American Standard Version and Revised Standard Version “had healed” is not to be understood in the sense that the healing ministry was finished; cf. “healed” of Moffatt, Translator’s New Testament (cf. Manson “made many cures”).
hōste epipiptein (cp. 1.27 for this construction) ‘so as to press upon’: the verb epipiptō (only here in Mark) means literally ‘to fall upon’ and is here used in the sense ‘to crowd upon,’ ‘to approach impetuously’ .
autou hapsōntai (cp. 1.41) ‘that they might touch him.’
hosoi eichon mastigas ‘as many as had diseases,’ ‘all who had diseases.’
mastix (5.29, 34) ‘whip,’ ‘scourge,’ ‘torment’: used of disease and suffering as divine chastisement. It is probable, however, that the word had lost its original sense of ‘scourge’ inflicted by the gods and meant simply ‘disease’ (cf. Lagrange). Cf. the similar use, in English, of the word ‘plague.’
Translation:
After the verb told it is quite frequent that the following order of Jesus must be stated in a direct form, e.g. ‘told his disciples: Have a boat ready for me because….’
To have a boat ready is not always an easy idea to translate literally. Some languages may speak of people being ‘ready’ (i.e. ‘prepared for action’) but inanimate objects such as boats cannot be spoken of as ‘ready.’ The closest equivalent in San Mateo del Mar Huave, for example, is to say ‘to have a boat tied (anchored) near by,’ Pamona and Javanese, ‘a little ship had to be close-by.’ On the other hand, one can usually speak of ‘preparing a boat for a person’ and this may be the best equivalent in some languages.
The two expressions (1) because of the crowd and (2) lest they should crush him are better coalesced into one clause in some languages since the logical subject is identical for each, e.g. ‘in order that the crowd would not push hard against him.’
The conjunction for introducing verse 10 may pose certain difficulties, since, if it is understood to suggest a reason for the immediately preceding action, there is a non sequitur, that is to say, people will not be able to understand why the people would crush him because he had healed so many. Actually, this conjunction introduces a reason, not for the immediately preceding action, but for the previous statement by Jesus, namely, that the disciples should keep a boat ready for him. In order, to make the relationship quite clear one may render the passage as ‘Jesus did this because he had healed many and as a result all who….’
Pressed upon him to touch him must be translated with care, for ‘to press upon’ may imply by its very form physical contact. Accordingly, readers may wonder why the phrase ‘to touch him’ should be added. However, the description of what was happening in this crowd can be readily described as ‘they kept pushing one another in order to touch him’ (Amganad Ifugao) or ‘kept shoving toward him in order to touch him’ (Tabasco Chontal).
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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