angel (Acts 12:15)

The Greek in Acts 12:15 that is translated as “angel” in English is translated into the Khmer Standard Version (2005) as “soul” because people believe that the “soul” of a dead person can come back and knock on the door asking for food any time up to 7 days after death.

See also angel.

babbler

Click here to view graphically

The Greek in Acts 17:18 that is translated into English as “babbler” is translated in a number of different ways:

  • Fuyug: “birdbrain” (source: David Clark)
  • San Mateo del Mar Huave: “man who does not know how to close his mouth”
  • Eastern Highland Otomi: “much-talker man”
  • Teutila Cuicatec: “loud-mouthed fellow”
  • Chichimeca-Jonaz: “person who does nothing but talk”
  • Morelos Nahuatl: “man who talks so much” (source for this and four above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
  • Low German: “know-it-all” (Klooksnaker) (translation by Johannes Jessen, publ. 1933, republ. 2006)
  • Hausa: “owner of noise” (source: Hausa Common Language Bible Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “boaster” (source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Mairasi: “guy know who talks out of his own thinking” (source: Enggavoter 2004)

For various English translations, see Translation commentary on Acts 17:18.

married status

In Purari society everyone marries, so the question was raised why in Acts 21:9 Philip’s daughters were unmarried. The final rendering into Purari tended to imply that they were all under 18, in order to avoid the implication that they were all so undesirable that nobody wanted to marry them.

kick against the goads

The Greek proverb in Acts 26:14 which is translated directly by some English versions as “kick against the goads (=a spiked stick used for driving cattle)” and refers to “pointless fighting” became “throw chaff into the wind” in the Khmer Standard Version translation of 2005 (the translators also considered “spit vertically upwards”). (Source David Clark)

In Lalana Chinantec it is translated as “as a bull which kicks a sharp stick which his owner holds so do you,” in Teutila Cuicatec as “you are doing the same as an ox that is hurting itself, kicking the sharp stick that people drive it with,” in Xicotepec De Juárez Totonac as “like a horse when it kicks the stick with which it is driven” (source for this and two above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), and in Elhomwe as “because you are against me, you are hurting yourself” (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext).

In Russian, the phrase Трудно тебе идти против рожна (Trudno tebe idti protiv rozhna) or “kick against the goads” is widely used as an idiom in every-day life, with the meaning of undertaking a risky action against constraint imposed by tradition or authority. The wording of the quote originated in the Russian Synodal Bible (publ. 1876). (Source: Reznikov 2020, p. 63f.)

dual vs. plural (Acts 7:16)

In this episode in Acts 7:16 it is ambiguous whether only Jacob and Joseph or Jacob and all of the other patriarchs were taken back to Shechem. In languages that distinguish between a dual and a plural this ambiguity has to be resolved. In the translation into Kahua only two bodies were taken back because Joseph’s body is specifically mentioned in Exodus 13:19 and Joshua 24:32.