Following is a Ukrainian Orthodox icon of the Transfiguration by Ivan Rutkovych (c. 1650 – c. 1708) (for the Church of Christ’s Nativity in Zhovkva, Ukraine, today in the Lviv National Museum).
Orthodox Icons are not drawings or creations of imagination. They are in fact writings of things not of this world. Icons can represent our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. They can also represent the Holy Trinity, Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and even events. Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the image so that it is not naturalistic. This is done so that we can look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event. (Source )
Following are a number of back-translations of Mark 9:6:
Uma: “Actually, Petrus didn’t know what he was saying then, for at that time they were so very afraid.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “The reason that Petros said that was, because he was at a loss/didn’t know as to what he was saying because they were very afraid.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “They were very much afraid, therefore Peter could not remember what he was saying.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “But that’s what he said, because he didn’t (sympathy particle) know what he was saying, because their fear was extreme.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “Pedro hadn’t thought about what he said because he was extremely afraid, as were those companions of his.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Palantla Chinantec: “The disciples were afraid, and Peter it was as though he lost his thoughts, and that’s why he said like that.” (Source: B. Moore / G. Turner in Notes on Translation 1967, p. 1ff.)
ou gar ēdei ti apokrithē ‘for he did not know what he should answer’ (or ‘say’) (for this grammatical construction cf. ti phagōsin ‘what they should eat’ 6.36; ti aiteisthe ‘what you are asking for’ 10.38; ouk ēdeisan ti apokrithōsin autō ‘they did not know what they should answer him’ 14.40).
ekphoboi gar egenonto ‘for they became terrified,’ or ‘for they had become terrified’ (rather than ‘were’).
ekphobos (only here in Mark) ‘terrified,’ ‘very afraid.’
Translation:
The syntactic problems of this verse are complex because of the two uses of for. The first introduces the reason for the preceding action, namely, Peter’s remark, and the second indicates why Peter did not know what to say. In some languages this distinction may be indicated only by expanding the first causal conjunction, e.g. ‘the reason he said this was that he really didn’t know what to say, for they….’ In Navajo the sequence of clauses is shifted ‘since they were exceedingly afraid, he did not know what to say.’
They must be translated in such a way as to refer to the disciples, not to the entire group nor to the immediately preceding third person plural pronoun, they in verse 4, which refers to Elijah and Moses.
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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