Ayutla Mixtec: “see that which will happen” (source for this and seven above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.)
Tagbanwa: “being caused to dream by God” (source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Chichewa: azidzaona zinthu m’masomphenya: “they will see things as if face-to-face” (interconfessional translation, publ. 1999) (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 69)
The Greek in the books of Revelation and Acts is translated as obq-rmwible: “look-dream” in Natügu. Brenda Boerger (in Beerle-Moor / Voinov, p. 162ff.) tells the story of that translation: “In the book of Revelation, the author, John, talks about having visions. Mr. Simon [the native language translator] and I discussed what this meant and he invented the compound verb obq-rmwible ‘look-dream’ to express it. Interestingly, during village testing no one ever had to ask what this neologism meant.”
The term that is transliterated as “Daniel” in English is translated in American Sign Language with the sign for the letter D and for “lion,” referring to the story in Daniel 6. (Source: Ruth Anna Spooner, Ron Lawer)
“Daniel” in American Sign Language, source: Deaf Harbor
In Swiss-German Sign Language it is translated with the sign for “prayer” that illustrates Daniel’s close relationship with God.
Following is a hand colored stencil print on washi of Daniel by Sadao Watanabe (1965):
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.
The following is a stained glass window depicting Daniel by Endre Odon Hevezi and Gyula Bajo from 1965 for the Debre Libanos Monastery, Oromia, Ethiopia:
Photo by Timothy A. Gonsalves, hosted by Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license
Stained glass is not just highly decorative, it’s a medium which has been used to express important religious messages for centuries. Literacy was not widespread in the medieval and Renaissance periods and the Church used stained glass and other artworks to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. In Gothic churches, the windows were filled with extensive narrative scenes in stained glass — like huge and colorful picture storybooks — in which worshipers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their religious salvation. (Source: Victoria and Albert Museum )
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Daniel 7:1:
Kupsabiny: “In the first year of the reign of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel got a dream. He saw visions while lying on his bed and he noted them down.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “In the first year that Belshazzar was king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and a vision. He wrote down the important matters of that dream.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “In the first year of the reign of Belshazar in Babilonia, Daniel saw visions in his dream. This (was) the dream that he wrote:” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “Previously, during the first year that Belshazzar was the king of Babylonia, I had a dream and a vision one night as I lay on my bed. The next morning I wrote down what I had dreamed. This is what I wrote:” (Source: Translation for Translators)
Some languages do not have a concept of kingship and therefore no immediate equivalent for the Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin that is translated as “king” in English. Here are some (back-) translations:
Ninia Yali: “big brother with the uplifted name” (source: Daud Soesilio in Noss 2007, p. 175)
Nyamwezi: mutemi: generic word for ruler, by specifying the city or nation it becomes clear what kind of ruler (source: Pioneer Bible Translators, project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
Ghomála’: Fo (“The word Fo refers to the paramount ruler in the kingdoms of West Cameroon. He holds administrative, political, and religious power over his own people, who are divided into two categories: princes (descendants of royalty) and servants (everyone else).” (Source: Michel Kenmogne in Theologizing in Context: An Example from the Study of a Ghomala’ Christian Hymn))
Faye Edgerton retells how the term in Navajo (Dinė) was determined:
“[This term was] easily expressed in the language of Biblical culture, which had kings and noblemen with their brilliant trappings and their position of honor and praise. But leadership among the Navajos is not accompanied by any such titles or distinctions of dress. Those most respected, especially in earlier days, were their headmen, who were the leaders in raids, and the shaman, who was able to serve the people by appealing for them to the gods, or by exorcising evil spirits. Neither of these made any outward show. Neither held his position by political intrigue or heredity. If the headman failed consistently in raids, he was superceded by a better warrior. If the shaman failed many times in his healing ceremonies, it was considered that he was making mistakes in the chants, or had lost favor with the gods, and another was sought. The term Navajos use for headman is derived from a verb meaning ‘to move the head from side to side as in making an oration.’ The headman must be a good orator, able to move the people to go to war, or to follow him in any important decision. This word is naat’áanii which now means ‘one who rules or bosses.’ It is employed now for a foreman or boss of any kind of labor, as well as for the chairman of the tribal council. So in order to show that the king is not just a common boss but the highest ruler, the word ‘aláahgo, which expresses the superlative degree, was put before naat’áanii, and so ‘aláahgo naat’áanii ‘anyone-more-than-being around-he-moves-his-head-the-one-who’ means ‘the highest ruler.’ Naat’áanii was used for governor as the context usually shows that the person was a ruler of a country or associated with kings.”
In the first year of Belshazzar: a literal reading of this phrase may give the impression that Belshazzar was only a year old at the time. But the sense of the expression is that the vision took place during the first year of the reign of Belshazzar as king. Translators should be sure at this point that the proper name of this king is sufficiently distinguished from the one given to Daniel in 1.7 (see also 5.1 and comments).
King of Babylon: Belshazzar was ruler over all Babylonia and not just the capital city of Babylon. So it is better to translate as in Good News Translation, “king of Babylonia.”
Daniel … his … he: note that the account is transposed from the third person to the first person in Good News Translation. In the original the third person pronouns are used in this verse, but in the following verse there is a shift to a direct quote from Daniel. In some languages it may be advisable to put the entire story in the first person as in Good News Translation, but naturalness in the translation should be the determining factor. If the Good News Translation model is not followed, translators must be careful to see that the pronoun references are clear, since both Daniel and the king are mentioned earlier in this verse.
A dream and visions: the rendering of this phrase should not give the impression that two different things are being talked about here. These are simply two terms used to describe a single event. In some languages the idea of a vision has to be expressed by a phrase like “something happened inside my head” or “I saw something happening in my mind.” Compare New International Version “visions passed through his mind.” For comments on the term “vision,” see 2.19.
As he lay in his bed: or “as he lay on his bed.” Other languages may express this idea in very different ways, depending on cultural practices. Some may say “as he lay down to go to rest,” or “when he stretched himself out for sleeping,” or “when he was on his sleeping mat.”
Then: it may be better to omit this transition word altogether in some languages. But in others it will be necessary to indicate the sequence of events: first Daniel had the dream, then he wrote it down.
Wrote down the dream, and told the sum of the matter: according to some interpreters these two verbal expressions should not be taken as referring to two different actions. The second would be rather an extension of the first. The two are combined in the New International Version rendering: “wrote down the substance of his dream.” Many versions, however, take the second verb phrase as introducing the actual wording that begins after Daniel said in the following verse. New Jerusalem Bible, for example, has “he wrote the dream down, and this is how the narrative began:….” And Moffatt translates “he wrote down the dream, describing all that he had seen.” But the oral character of the message (in addition to the fact that it was written) seems to be emphasized by the writer. The verb meaning “tell” or “say” occurs both here and again at the beginning of the following verse.
Quoted with permission from Péter-Contesse, René & Ellington, John. A Handbook on Daniel. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1994. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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