complete verse (Mark 7:15)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 7:15:

  • Uma: “Whatever we may eat, it isn’t that which makes us bad in God’s sight. The character that appears from in our hearts, it’s that which makes us bad in God’s sight.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “It is not the food that goes into the body of a person that causes him to be defiled. But that is what causes him to be defiled, what comes out of his liver.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “that which can cause God to be displeased with a person is not the food which enters into his mouth even though he has not washed, but rather, it is the words which come out of his mouth.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “It is not what a person causes-to-go-into his mouth that makes-him -dirty, but rather what he causes-to-go-out of his mouth.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “It’s not what goes into the mouth of a person which causes him to be disgusting in the sight of God, but on the contrary the evil words which come out of his mouth.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 7:15

Exegesis:

estin … eisporeuomenon ‘is … going in’: although Translator’s New Testament treats this as a compound verbal phrase meaning simply ‘enters,’ the majority of translations, like Revised Standard Version, separate the two, translating ouden estin ‘there is nothing,’ and eisporeuomenon ‘which goes in’ as an independent participle modifying ouden ‘nothing.’

eisporeuomai (cf. 1.21) ‘go in,’ ‘enter.’

exōthen (7.18; cf. exō 3.31, 32) ‘from without,’ ‘from the outside.’

koinōsai (7.18, 20, 23; cf. koinos 7.2) ‘to make common,’ ‘to defile.’

ekporeuomena (cf. 1.5) ‘the things which go out’: the reference, of course, is to passions, sins and evil desires, catalogued in vv. 21-23, which have their origin inside the man, in his heart, and are outwardly expressed in sinful deeds and words.

Translation:

Nothing going into him must be made somewhat more specific in some languages, for this could be understood as referring to being wounded by a spear, pierced by an arrow, or stabbed by a knife. Obviously the meaning here is ‘eating,’ and hence in Guerrero Amuzgo the translation is ‘nothing that he eats.’

For defile see 7.2, but in this context it may be necessary to translate ‘make him bad’ or ‘cause him to sin.’

The phrase the things which come out of a man has been grossly misinterpreted in some translations to mean the excretion of body wastes, vomiting, an the discharge of mucus from the nose. In order that these ‘things which come out’ may be identified as behavior, one may add ‘out of the heart’ (Tzeltal), or say ‘what he does and says.’

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 .