swear, vow

The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “swear (an oath)” or “vow” is translated as “God sees me, I tell the truth to you” (Tzeltal), “loading yourself down” (Huichol), “to speak-stay” (implying permanence of the utterance) (Sayula Popoluca), “to say what he could not take away” (San Blas Kuna), “because of the tight (i.e. “binding”) word which he had said to her face” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “strong promise” (North Alaskan Inupiatun) (source for all above: Bratcher / Nida), “eat an oath” (Nyamwezi — source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext), or sswa nak/”drink an oath” (Jju — source: McKinney 2018, p. 31).

In Bauzi “swear” can be translated in various ways. In Hebrews 6:13, for instance, it is translated with “bones break apart and decisively speak.” (“No bones are literally broken but by saying ‘break bones’ it is like people swear by someone else in this case it is in relation to a rotting corpse’ bones falling apart. If you ‘break bones’ so to speak when you make an utterance, it is a true utterance.”) In other passages, such as in Matthew 26:72, it’s translated with an expression that implies taking ashes (“if a person wants everyone to know that he is telling the truth about a matter, he reaches down into the fireplace, scoops up some ashes and throws them while saying ‘I was not the one who did that.'”). So in Matthew 26:72 the Bauzi text is: “. . . Peter took ashes and defended himself saying, ‘I don’t know that Nazareth person.'” (Source: David Briley)

See also swear (promise) and Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’, or ‘No, No’.

complete verse (Mark 6:23)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 6:23:

  • Uma: “He also swore-an-oath, he said: ‘Whatever at all you (sing.) want, even half of my government, I will give you (sing.)!'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “And he still swore, he said, ‘Whatever you ask of me, I will really, truly give it to you, even if it is one half of my possessions.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “King Herod made a very strong promise to the one who danced. He said, ‘Whatever you ask me for, even half of my kingdom, I will give it to you.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “He also swore saying, ‘Whatever you (sing.) request, even the half of my rulership, I will give it to you (sing.).'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “Herodes really made an oath too that he would give even half of his kingdom if that’s what was asked for.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 6:23

Text:

After ōmosen ‘he swore’ Taylor and Kilpatrick add polla ‘much,’ which is omitted by all other editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

ōmosen (14.71) ‘swore,’ ‘vowed,’ ‘took an oath.’

heōs hēmisous ‘up to one-half,’ ‘as much as one-half.’

Translation:

Vowed means ‘swore an oath,’ a practice which in its so-called proper sense is more common in other cultures than in ours. In English to swear usually implies cursing and indiscriminate use of names of Deity. But in this passage one has an instance of a culturally common practice of making a promise while calling on God to witness and implying that failure to perform an oath would invoke divine sanctions. Such an action is describable in quite different ways, e.g. ‘God sees me, I tell the truth to you’ (Tzeltal), ‘he loaded himself down’ (Huichol), ‘to speak-stay,’ implying permanence of the utterance (Sayula Popoluca), and ‘to say what he could not take away’ (San Blas Kuna).

Half of my kingdom may be ‘half of the land I rule over’ (Sayula Popoluca) or ‘half of my land’ (Shipibo-Conibo).

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 .