Jesus heals a boy (image)

Image taken from the Wiedmann Bible. For more information about the images and ways to adopt them, see here .

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formal pronoun: common people addressing Jesus

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.

complete verse (Mark 9:17)

Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 9:17:

  • Uma: “One of the many people said: ‘Teacher, here’s my child, I brought him for you (sing.) to heal. He can’t talk for he is indwelt by an evil-spirit.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Someone from the crowd answered, he said, ‘Sir, I have brought this my child here to you because he is possessed by a demon that causes him to be dumb.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And one of the many people answered and said, ‘My male child who cannot speak because he is afflicted with a demon, I brought him here to be cured.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘Sir teacher,’ said one, answering. ‘I brought koma my child to you (sing.), because an evil-spirit possessed him making him dumb.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “One person answered who was there in that crowd. He said, ‘Teacher, I was bringing my son here to you (sing.) for he is mad/possessed. He really can’t form his words.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)

Translation commentary on Mark 9:17

Exegesis:

heis (cf. 5.22) ‘one’: the equivalent of the indefinite tis ‘a certain one,’ ‘somebody.’

The other words have already been dealt with: for didaskale ‘Teacher’ cf. 4.38; pherō ‘bring’ cf. 1.32; pneuma ‘spirit’ cf. 1.23; alalon ‘mute’ cf. 7.37.

echonta pneuma alalon ‘having a dumb spirit’; the participle is causal, ‘because he has a dumb spirit.’ The spirit is called dumb (or mute) because the boy whom it possessed was mute (and deaf, as well, v. 25), presumably as a result of being possessed by the unclean spirit; cf. Toraja-Sa’dan ‘into whom a spirit has entered, so that he is dumb.’

Translation:

For teacher see 2.15 and 9.5.

Brought should be rendered probably in the sense of ‘led’ or ‘brought along’ (as one would a small child).

Dumb spirit would be rendered in many languages ‘a spirit which makes him dumb,’ ‘a demon which keeps him from speaking’ or ‘a spirit which makes him so that he cannot speak.’ In some languages, however, dumb is rendered by an idiomatic phrase, e.g. ‘his heart is closed’ (Tzeltal), in which case it would be the spirit which causes this condition.

For spirit in the sense of ‘demon,’ see 1.26, 32.

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 .