The Greek, Latin and Hebrew that is usually translated in English as “truth” is translated in Luchazi with vusunga: “the quality of being straight” (source: E. Pearson in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 160ff. ), in Obolo as atikọ or “good/correct talk” (source: Enene Enene), and in Ekari as maakodo bokouto or “enormous truth” (esp. in John 14:6 and 17; bokouto — “enormous” — is being used as an attribute for abstract nouns to denote that they are of God [see also here]; source: Marion Doble in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 37ff. ).
The translation committee of the Malay “Good News Bible” (Alkitab Berita Baik, see here ) wrestled with the translation of “truth” in the Gospel of John (for more information click or tap here):
“Our Malay Committee also concluded that ‘truth’ as used in the Gospel of John was used either of God himself, or of God’s revelation of himself, or in an extended sense as a reference to those who had responded to God’s self-disclosure. In John 8:32 the New Malay translation reads ‘You will know the truth about God, and the truth about God will make you free.’ In John 8:44 this meaning is brought out by translating, ‘He has never been on the side of God, because there is no truth in him.’ Accordingly Jesus ‘tells the truth about God’ in 8:45, 46 (see also 16:7 and 8:37a). Then, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ becomes ‘I am the one who leads men to God, the one who reveals who and what God is, and the one who gives men life.” At 3:21 the translation reads ” … whoever obeys the truth, that is God himself, comes to the light …’; 16:13a appears as ‘he will lead you into the full truth about God’; and in 18:37 Jesus affirms ‘I came into the world to reveal the truth about God, and whoever obeys God listens to me.’ On this basis also 1:14 was translated ‘we saw his glory, the glory which he had as the Father’s only Son. Through him God has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace)’; and 1:17 appears as ‘God gave the law through Moses; but through Jesus Christ he has completely revealed himself (truth) and his love for us (grace).'” (Source: Barclay Newman in The Bible Translator 1974, p. 432ff. )
Helen Evans (in The Bible Translator 1954, p. 40ff. ) tells of the translation into Kui which usually is “true-thing.” In some instances however, such as in the second part of John 17:17 (“your word is truth” in English), the use of “true-thing” indicated that there might be other occasions when it’s not true, so here the translation was a a form of “pure, holy.”
In Tezoatlán Mixtec the passage in 1 Cor. 13:4-6 which lists what love is not, reads with a different emphasis because “love” cannot be translated as an abstract noun (see also love (abstract noun) (Lamogai)).
John Williams explains: “[Tezoatlán Mixtec] is like many languages of the world in that it does not have abstract nouns, and so the language requires a translation of love in its verb form. The verb ‘love’ requires a subject, as well as a direct object. Mixtec must state who is loving whom. The translation team at first thought it could be God loving us, but we saw that after saying love is patient, love is kind, the next eight statements say what love is not. So we determined the focus is more on how Christians should love other Christians. Looking at the immediate context of chapter 12 and 14, as well as the context of the rest of the book led us to conclude that 1 Corinthians 13 is not a love poem, but more of a rebuke to the Corinthians, showing how they were not loving one another. This fresh understanding, to me at least, came as a result of Mixtec requiring us to look at the passage through new eyes. If this chapter is read as a rebuke, and since so many verses in the previous chapters have ‘rebuke’ as the focus, when read in Mixtec, the entire book of 1 Corinthians sounds very much like a ‘severe’ letter (see 2 Cor. 2:4).”
This is how the Tezoatlán Mixtec translation reads back-translated into English:
“4 Us loving others is that we inwardly endure what they do, and that we live at peace/kindly with them. Our loving others is not that we envy them, and loving them is not that we boast in front of them, and it is not that we are proud before them, 5 and it is not that we treat them badly, and it is not that we are selfish with them, and it is not that we get angry with them, and it is not that we feel bitterness toward them, 6 and it is not that we are happy when they do wrong, for it is that we instead are happy when they do right.”
Following are a number of back-translations of 1 Corinthians 13:6:
Uma: “If we are loving to other(s), it means we aren’t happy about it when he is wrong, we are happy if he is straight/right.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “If we (dual) love, we (dual) don’t like it/feel good when people do bad but we (dual) like it/feel good when they do straight (things).” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “If other people are precious in our breath, we are not made happy by evil-doings because the thing that gives us joy is righteous-doing.” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “The person who is loving, he is not happy if something evil happens/is-done but rather is made-happy by what is right and true.” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “And it is not happy about evil deeds but rather what it is happy about is good deeds which are in harmony with the truth.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “He isn’t happy upon seeing other people committing sin. Rather he is happy when he sees that people walk uprightly.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
The two incidents of rejoice here come from two different but related Greek verbs. Paul obviously uses these synonyms for stylistic reasons, with no perceptible difference in meaning.
Wrong is too weak an English word here. Good News Bible‘s “evil” renders the meaning of the Greek.
Right is more likely “truth,” as in Good News Bible. The Greek word implies speaking the truth, as in 5.8: “of sincerity and truth.”
An alternative translation model for this verse is:
• People who have Christian love should not rejoice over evil, but they should rejoice over the truth.
Quoted with permission from Ellingworth, Paul and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, 2nd edition. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1985/1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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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