The Greek that is translated as “gift” or similar in English is transliterated in the German New Testament translation by Berger / Nord (publ. 1999) as Charisma (instead of the commonly-used Gabe or “gift”) to differentiate it from regular human gifts. The translators explain (p. 94): “According to Paul, ‘Charisma’ is an extraordinary gift, that is humanly not explainable. Basically every Christian has such a gift and is supposed to use it in mission-oriented efforts for the one who gives this gift.”
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 12:4:
Uma: “God gives us many kinds of abilities to do his work, each of us gets different abilities. But all those abilities are gifts from the one and the same Holy Spirit.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Na, the expertises from God are not the same. But nevertheless it is God’s Spirit who gives us (dual) our (incl.) expertise.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And as for those skills that the Holy Spirit gives us (incl.), they are not all the same but they have only one source, and that is the Holy Spirit.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “The abilities that are given to us who believe are mutually-different, but there is only-one who is giving (them) who is the Holy Spirit.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “There are really very many abilities that the Espiritu Santo freely-gives, but this Espiritu Santo who is the origin is only one.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Concerning the work of God, there are different works to be done by the believers. But concerning all of them it is the Holy Spirit who enables the people to do those works.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
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Like a number of other East Asian languages, Japanese uses a complex system of honorifics, i.e. a system where a number of different levels of politeness are expressed in language via words, word forms or grammatical constructs. These can range from addressing someone or referring to someone with contempt (very informal) to expressing the highest level of reference (as used in addressing or referring to God) or any number of levels in-between.
One way to do this is through the usage (or a lack) of an honorific prefix as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. When the referent is God, the “divine” honorific prefix mi- (御 or み) can be used, as in mi-tama (御霊) or “Spirit (of God)” in the referenced verses.
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
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