Τοῦτο οὖν λέγω καὶ μαρτύρομαι ἐν κυρίῳ, μηκέτι ὑμᾶς περιπατεῖν, καθὼς καὶ τὰ ἔθνη περιπατεῖ ἐν ματαιότητι τοῦ νοὸς αὐτῶν,
The Old Life and the New
17Now this I affirm and insist on in the Lord: you must no longer walk as the gentiles walk, in the futility of their minds;
The Greek that is typically translated as “mind” in English is translated in Warao as obojona, a term that “includes the concepts of consciousness, will, attitude, attention and a few other miscellaneous notions.” (Source: Henry Osborn in The Bible Translator 1969, p. 74ff. )
In Elhomwe it is often translated as “heart,” “because all thoughts come from heart in Elhomwe thought.” (Source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext)
See other occurrences of Obojona in the Warao New Testament.
The Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin that is often translated as “gentiles” (or “nations”) in English is often translated as a “local equivalent of ‘foreigners,'” such as “the people of other lands” (Guerrero Amuzgo), “people of other towns” (Tzeltal), “people of other languages” (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), “strange peoples” (Navajo (Dinė)) (this and above, see Bratcher / Nida), “outsiders” (Ekari), “people of foreign lands” (Kannada), “non-Jews” (North Alaskan Inupiatun), “people being-in-darkness” (a figurative expression for people lacking cultural or religious insight) (Toraja-Sa’dan) (source for this and three above Reiling / Swellengrebel), “from different places all people” (Martu Wangka) (source: Carl Gross).
Tzeltal translates it as “people in all different towns,” Chicahuaxtla Triqui as “the people who live all over the world,” Highland Totonac as “all the outsider people,” Sayula Popoluca as “(people) in every land” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Chichimeca-Jonaz as “foreign people who are not Jews,” Sierra de Juárez Zapotec as “people of other nations” (source of this and one above: Viola Waterhouse in Notes on Translation August 1966, p. 86ff.), Highland Totonac as “outsider people” (source: Waterhouse / Parrott in Notes on Translation October 1967, p. 1ff.), Uma as “people who are not the descendants of Israel” (source: Uma Back Translation), “other ethnic groups” (source: Newari Back Translation), and Yakan as “the other tribes” (source: Yakan Back Translation).
In Chichewa, it is translated with mitundu or “races.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
See also nations.
Following are a number of back-translations of Ephesians 4:17:
The Hebrew adonai in the Old Testament typically refers to God. The shorter adon (and in two cases in the book of Daniel the Aramaic mare [מָרֵא]) is also used to refer to God but more often for concepts like “master,” “owner,” etc. In English Bible translations all of those are translated with “Lord” if they refer to God.
In English Old Testament translations, as in Old Testament translations in many other languages, the use of Lord (or an equivalent term in other languages) is not to be confused with Lord (or the equivalent term with a different typographical display for other languages). While the former translates adonai, adon and mare, the latter is a translation for the tetragrammaton (YHWH) or the Name of God. See tetragrammaton (YHWH) and the article by Andy Warren-Rothlin in Noss / Houser, p. 618ff. for more information.
In the New Testament, the Greek term kurios has at least four different kinds of use:
In the first and fourth case, it is also translated as “Lord” in English.
Most languages naturally don’t have one word that covers all these meanings. According to Bratcher / Nida, “the alternatives are usually (1) a term which is an honorific title of respect for a high-ranking person and (2) a word meaning ‘boss’, ‘master’, or ‘chief.’ (…) and on the whole it has generally seemed better to employ a word of the second category, in order to emphasize the immediate personal relationship, and then by context to build into the word the prestigeful character, since its very association with Jesus Christ will tend to accomplish this purpose.”
When looking at the following list of back-translations of the terms that translators in the different languages have used for both kurios and adonai to refer to God and Jesus respectively, it might be helpful for English readers to recall the etymology of the English “Lord.” While this term might have gained an exalted meaning in the understanding of many, it actually comes from hlaford or “loaf-ward,” referring to the lord of the castle who was the keeper of the bread (source: Rosin 1956, p. 121).
Following are some of the solutions that don’t rely on a different typographical display (see above):
We have come to rely on another term which emphasizes God’s essential nature as YHWH, namely jukurrarnu (see tetragrammaton (YHWH)). This word is built on the same root jukurr– as is jukurrpa, ‘dreaming.’ Its basic meaning is ‘timelessness’ and it is used to describe physical features of the land which are viewed as always being there. Some speakers view jukurrarnu in terms of ‘history.’ In all Genesis references to YHWH we have used Kaatu Jukurrarnu. In all Mark passages where kurios refers to God and not specifically to Christ we have also used Kaatu Jukurrarnu.
New Testament references to Christ as kurios are handled differently. At one stage we experimented with the term Watirirririrri which refers to a ceremonial boss of highest rank who has the authority to instigate ceremonies. While adequately conveying the sense of Christ’s authority, there remained potential negative connotations relating to Warlpiri ceremonial life of which we might be unaware.
Here it is that the Holy Spirit led us to make a chance discovery. Transcribing the personal testimony of the local Warlpiri pastor, I noticed that he described how ‘my Warlaljamarri called and embraced me (to the faith)’. Warlaljamarri is based on the root warlalja which means variously ‘family, possessions, belongingness’. A warlaljamarri is the ‘owner’ or ‘possessor’ of something. While previously being aware of the ‘ownership’ aspect of warlaljamarri, this was the first time I had heard it applied spontaneously and naturally in a fashion which did justice to the entire concept of ‘Lordship’. Thus references to Christ as kurios are now being handled by Warlaljamarri.” (Source: Stephen Swartz, The Bible Translator 1985, p. 415ff. )
Law (2013, p. 97) writes about how the Ancient Greek Septuagint‘s translation of the Hebrew adonai was used by the New Testament writers as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments: “Another case is the use of kurios referring to Jesus. For Yahweh (in English Bibles: ‘the Lord‘), the Septuagint uses kurios. Although the term kurios usually has to do with one’s authority over others, when the New Testament authors use this word from the Septuagint to refer to Jesus, they are making an extraordinary claim: Jesus of Nazareth is to be identified with Yahweh.”
See also Father / Lord.
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 Japanese shows different degree of politeness is through the choice of a formal plural suffix to the second person pronoun (“you” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. In these verses, anata-gata (あなたがた) is used, combining the second person pronoun anata and the plural suffix -gata to create a formal plural pronoun (“you” [plural] in English).
(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )
Illustration by Horst Lemke (1922-1985) for the German Gute Nachricht für Sie – NT68, one of the first editions of the Good News Bible in German of 1968. Lemke was a well-known illustrator who illustrated books by Erich Kästner , Astrid Lindgren and many others.
Invoking his apostolic authority, In the Lord’s name (literally “in the Lord” as in 4.1), the writer solemnly begins: “This, then, I say and affirm”; the second verb has weight to it: “affirm, urge, insist” (also 1 Thes 2.12).
In a number of languages the phrase In the Lord’s name means practically nothing. But it may be possible to translate this phrase as “As the one who represents the Lord” or “As one who speaks for the Lord” or “As one who is related closely to the Lord” or “On the Lord’s authority.”
Since the exhortation involves what people should not do, it is perfectly appropriate to use a term such as warn. But one could also use a verb meaning “to urge” or “to insist strongly.”
To live translates “to walk” (see 2.2, 10; 4.1). The heathen translates the noun translated Gentiles in 2.11; 3.1, 6, 8. The admonition do not continue to live like the heathen may be rendered as “you must no longer live like those who do not trust God” or “… who do not live as God says they should.” Here the implication of the Greek term often translated “Gentiles” means much more then merely non-Jews. They are characterized as “walking in the emptiness of their mind,” which means that their thinking, their reasoning, is worthless.
The clause whose thoughts are worthless may be rendered as “what they think has no value” or “what they think means nothing.”
The following (verse 18) and whose minds are in the dark is similar in meaning and emphasizes the inability of the heathen to comprehend spiritual truth. Thoughts translates the Greek word for “mind, intellect, thinking” (also verse 23), and minds translates the Greek word for “understanding, perception, reasoning” (also 2.3). The language is similar to that in Romans 1.21 “they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened” (Revised Standard Version).
In a number of languages a statement such as whose minds are in the dark does not mean much. In fact, it may mean nothing more than “they think in the dark.” It may therefore be more appropriate to say “they cannot understand anything” or “what they think has no meaning.”
They have no part translates the perfect passive participle of a Greek verb meaning “to be an alien, a stranger” (see 2.12 apart from Christ). “The life of God” (Revised Standard Version), a phrase that occurs nowhere else in the New Testament, is in this context the life that God offers mankind; Abbott “the life that proceeds from God.”
Many translations will be able to keep the image of the Greek text of being an alien or stranger: “As for the life that God gives, they are strangers,” or “They are foreigners to the life that comes from God.” But a more or less literal translation of They have no part in the life that God gives might be taken to apply to physical life. It may therefore be possible to translate this statement as “they have no part of the new (or, true) life that God makes possible” or “… that God gives to people.”
The reason for their intellectual and spiritual condition is given in two “on account of” clauses which seem to be parallel: “on account of the ignorance that is in them” and “on account of the hardening of their heart”; or, the second one could be read as the reason for the first one (as New International Version does). In the first clause the Greek word for “lack of understanding, ignorance” has an element of willfulness in it; it describes unwillingness to learn, refusal to admit the truth (compare Barth: “their inherent refusal to know [God]”). “Hardening of the heart” is a Semitic phrase for stubbornness (compare the identical phrase “the hardening of their heart” in Mark 3.5, and see “their minds were hardened” in 2 Cor 3.14). Good News Translation has combined the two clauses into one: for they are completely ignorant and stubborn; also Translator’s New Testament “they are utterly ignorant and insensitive.” The noun “hardness” indicates a condition of insensitivity, lack of feeling, inability or unwillingness to respond or to react; Beare defines it as “a deliberate steeling of the will against every good impulse.”
An equivalent for they are completely ignorant and stubborn may be “they do not know anything, and they don’t want to know anything.” In a number of instances, however, stubborn is translated by an idiom, for example, “they have stopped up their ears” or “they refuse to listen” or “their heads are like stone” or “their mouths are always saying, No.”
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert C. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1982. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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