Raising a Girl (image)

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:
Raising a Girl
Proof that Jesus is the true God

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.

complete verse (Mark 5:38)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 5:38:

  • Uma: “Arriving at Yairus’ house, what should he hear but how noisy the people were, they were just weeping and wailing at full strength.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “When they arrived there at the house of Jairus, he saw the people who were there in a noisy-confusion. They were crying and wailing loudly.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And when they arrived there in the house of Jairus, Jesus saw that the people were in a state of confusion. He heard them wailing and weeping.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “When they arrived at Jairus’ house, Jesus saw the noise-making many-people weeping-bitterly and wailing.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “On their arrival at the house of that overseer, Jesus saw that there were very many people there who were crying and making a lot of noise with their crying.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 5:38

Exegesis:

eis ton oikon ‘into the house (home),’ ‘to the house (home)’: eis here probably means ‘to,’ since in v. 39 it is said ‘and he went in’ (into the house), while in v. 40 we read ‘and he entered (the room) where the child was,’ eis ton oikon may mean literally ‘into the house’ or, ‘into (the courtyard of) the house’: the meaning accepted by Revised Standard Version, Translator’s New Testament and others, however, seems to be the preferred one.

oikos ‘house’ or ‘home.’

theōrei (cf. 3.11) thorubon (14.2) ‘he sees a tumult’: the word thorubos means ‘turmoil,’ ‘excitement,’ ‘uproar.’

kai klaiontas kai alalazontas polla ‘and (people) crying and lamenting much’: this phrase describes in detail the thorubon ‘turmoil’ Jesus saw. The two masculine participles are in the accusative case, as the object of the verb theōrei ‘he sees,’ and both refer to people crying and people wailing.

klaiō (5.39; 14.72; 16.10) ‘weep,’ ‘cry.’

alalazō (only here in Mark) ‘wail,’ ‘cry out,’ ‘lament.’

polla (cf. 1.45) adverbial ‘much’: here, ‘loudly,’ ‘grievously,’ ‘bitterly.’

Translation:

It may be well at this point to specify he more exactly as ‘Jesus’ because of the intervening third person referents. Tumult is ‘many people making a lot of noise.’

Weeping and wailing is equivalent to ‘crying and yelling out’ (Yucateco) or ‘crying and making a noise’ (Central Tarahumara). Wailing appears to most peoples as quite appropriate at the time of death, but in some tribes wailing is carefully avoided so as not to prevent unduly the passage of the spirit from this world to the next.

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 .