The magi's dream (image)

Hand colored stencil print on momigami by Sadao Watanabe (1979).

Image taken with permission from the SadaoHanga Catalogue where you can find many more images and information about Sadao Watanabe.

For other images of Sadao Watanabe art works in TIPs, see here.

Nativity scene (icon)

Following is a Macedonian Orthodox icon of the Nativity scene from 1865 (found in Saint George Church in Kočani, North Macedonia).

Down below is a modern icon from the Eritrean Orthodox Church.

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 )

Nativity (image)

He Qi © 2021 All Rights Reserved.

Image taken from He Qi Art . For purchasing prints of this and other artworks by He Qi go to heqiart.com .

For other images of He Qi art works in TIPs, see here.

complete verse (Matthew 2:12)

Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 2:12:

  • Uma: “After that, God spoke to them in their dreams, he told them: ‘Don’t return to Herodes!’ So, on their return, they no longer went through Yerusalem, they avoided it going on another road.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “After this they were told by God in their dream, not to go back to Herod. So-then they returned home, following a different road.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “God caused them to understand by means of a dream that they should not return to Herod. And because of this they did not retrace the way they came as they went home.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “So then, God caused-them -to-dream, and he instructed them that they not return to Herod, so they walked-by-a-different -route to go-home to their country.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “When they were to go home now, that night they were caused to dream by God who said that they weren’t to stop-by Herodes. That’s why they went on a different trail when they went home.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “After this, while these men were sleeping, God showed them that when they returned home, they must not go to where Herod was. Rather they returned by another road.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing his disciples and common people

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, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.

In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.

Translation commentary on Matthew 2:12

Good News Bible reverses the order of the two clauses as they appear in the Greek text (compare Revised Standard Version and Good News Translation), thereby destroying the chronological sequence. For most languages the Greek order, retained by Revised Standard Version, will be more natural.

Being warned translates one word in Greek; Good News Translation restructures as an active, indicating subject and indirect object: “since God had warned them.” This is legitimate, since the Greek verb refers specifically to a revelation which originates from God, and several other translations also make this information explicit (Moffatt “they had been divinely warned”; Barclay “because a message from God came to them … warning them”; Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch “God commanded them”). This verb is used once again in verse 22, but nowhere else in the Gospel.

Being warned will be expressed in some languages with indirect speech, as in “God told them in a dream they should not go back to Herod.” But others will use direct speech: “God spoke to them while they dreamed, and said, ‘You should not go back to Herod.’ ”

In a dream is the same expression used in 1.20. Here some possibilities are “God appeared to them in a dream,” “God gave them a dream and said to them…,” or “God showed himself to them while they slept and warned them….” Others will have “God warned them … Therefore (or, As a result) they departed.”

The verb translated return is rare in the New Testament; other than here it occurs only in Luke 10.6; Acts 18.21; and Hebrews 11.15; it is also found in some manuscripts in 2 Peter 2.21. It can be translated “go back to” or perhaps “go back to see.”

For departed to their own country, translators can say “they went back,” or “they went to their own country,” or “they left there to go to their own country.”

Their own country can be “the region where they lived.”

Another way means a route or road different from the one by which they had come from their country: “They took a different road” or “They followed a road they had not taken when they came.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .