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 8:15:
Kupsabiny: “As I still tried to understand the meaning of this vision, suddenly something that looked like a human being came and stood before me.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Having seen this vision, while I, Daniel was trying to understand it, someone who seemed to be a man appeared before me.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “While I was-watching that vision and thinking what (is) its meaning, there was (someone) who looked-like a person suddenly stood in front of me.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
English: “While I, Daniel, was trying to understand what the vision meant, suddenly an angel who resembled a man stood/appeared in front of me.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
I, Daniel: compare “me, Daniel” in 7.15, 28; 8.1. Once again this use of the emphatic pronoun followed by the proper name seems to establish the fact that the prophet is emerging from the vision to the real world; thus it marks an important point in the discourse of the book.
When I … had seen the vision, I sought to understand it: it may be important in some languages to alter the verb tenses to make the meaning clearer. The idea is something like “after having seen the vision I was making an effort to understand it,” or “while I was thinking about the vision I had seen and trying to figure it out.”
Behold: in this case the Hebrew particle is translated as “suddenly” in Good News Translation (as well as Revised English Bible and Moffatt) because the context seems to require some such word in English. Many other languages will have similar ways of marking a surprising turn of events.
One having the appearance of a man: in spite of the similarity in English between this expression and the one in 7.13, the Hebrew here is in reality quite different from the Aramaic expression in the previous chapter. Consequently it here designates a being that is different from the “son of man” in the previous chapter. Here the word for man, gever, signifies an adult male person and not the more generic “human being.” The Hebrew word has the same root as the proper name “Gabriel,” one of the angels in the service of God, who is named in the following verse (compare 9.21 and Luke 1.19, 26).
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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