The Greek and Hebrew hat is translated as “purple” in English is translated as “blue-red” in Ojitlán Chinantec (source: M. Larson in Notes on Translation 1970, p. 1ff.) and in Elhomwe (source: project-specific translation notes in Paratext). In Silimo it is translated with a local reference: “the colour of the wipegen berry” (source: Buzz and Myrna Maxey ).
“The Kasua people of Western Province have no word for the color purple. They have words for many other colors: black, red, white, yellow, green, and blue, but not for the color of royalty.
“About nine New Testament passages mention people placing a purple robe on Jesus. The Kasua translation team always wanted to use the word ‘red,’ or keyalo, to describe the robe. Tommy, one of the translation team helpers, disagreed because this is not historically accurate or signifies the royalty of Jesus.
“One of the main rules of translation is that the team must stick to the historical facts when they translate a passage. If they don’t, then how can the readers trust what they’re reading is true? Other questions about truth could bubble in the reader’s minds about the Scriptures. For this reason, Tommy was not willing to change the word purple. So the team hung up the problem, hoping to revisit it later with more inspiration.
“God did not disappoint.
“Years later, Tommy hiked with some of the men near their village. They saw a tree that possessed bulbous growths growing on the side of it like fruit. These growths were ‘the most beautiful color of purple I’d ever seen,’ explained Tommy.
“’What is the name of this tree?’ Tommy asked the men.
“’This is an Okani tree,’ they replied.
“Tommy suggested, ‘Why don’t you, in those passages where we’ve been struggling to translate the color purple, use ‘they put a robe on Jesus the color of the fruit of the Okani tree’?
“’Yeah. We know exactly what color that is,’ the men said enthusiastically.
“Everyone in their village would also visualize this phrase accurately, as the Okani tree is the only tree in that area that produces this kind of purple growth. So now, among the Kasua people, in his royal purple robe, Jesus is shown to be the king that he is.”
The Hebrew and Greek that is translated as “pomegranate” in English was translated in the 1900 Kalaallisut (Greenlandic) translation (a newer version was published in 2000) as kingmernarssûp or “big lingonberry.” “The Greenlandic word kingmernarssûp (modern kimmernarsuup) derives from kingmernaĸ (modern kimmernaq) ‘lingonberry’ (Vaccinium vitis-idaea). The lingonberry is the fruit of a shrub from the heath family which is native to the boreal forest and tundra in the Arctic regions of North America, Europe, and Siberia, including western and southern Greenland. The term for ‘lingonberry’ has been modified with the suffix –ssuaĸ (modern –suaq ‘big’), resulting in a descriptive term meaning ‘big lingonberry.’ (Modern Greenlandic uses the Danish loanword granatæble.)” (Source: Lily Kahn & Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi in The Bible Translator 2019, p. 125ff.)
The pomegranate Punica granatum has been grown from ancient times across the Middle East over to Iran and into northern India. It is widely cultivated throughout India and the drier parts of Southeast Asia, Malaya, the East Indies, and tropical Africa. Pomegranates are now found throughout the warm parts of southern Europe and across North Africa and Asia all the way to Nepal. Images of pomegranate fruits have been found in Pharaoh’s temple in Karnak, Egypt, dating from around 1480 B.C. In classical Latin the species name was malum punium (apple of Puni) or malum granatum (seedy apple). This has influenced the common name for pomegranate in many languages (for example, GermanGranatapfel, “seed apple”). The English word “pomegranate” itself comes from Latin pomum (fruit, apple) via Old French. The Arabic rummân (رمان) passed into some other languages, including Portuguese romã.
The pomegranate is a small tree, growing to about 3-5 meters (10-17 feet) tall, with narrow, dark green leaves and many thorny branches. It has a lovely red flower. The fruit is a bit smaller than an orange and has a hard skin, which must be cut open to get at the tightly-packed pockets of seeds inside, each seed enclosed in a little bag of juicy pulp. The end of the fruit has a distinctive flower-like shape. The hard skin, which turns from green to red as it ripens, is used as a tanning agent, for medicine, and for ink. The seeds were sometimes made into wine. Pomegranate trees live up to two hundred years.
The pomegranate was one of the seven “special” foods mentioned in Deuteronomy 8:8 that the Israelites would find in Canaan. The fruit was one of several brought back to the camp of the Israelites by the men who scouted out Canaan (Numbers 13:23). In Song of Songs 4:3 the bride of the king is said to have cheeks like halves of a pomegranate, a reference, probably, to their red color. The flower-shaped end of the pomegranate fruit made it an attractive decoration, for example on the fringe of the priests’ robes (Exodus 28:33f. and on the columns and furniture of the Temple (2 Kings 25:17).
In Jewish tradition the pomegranate stands for righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds, corresponding to the 613 commands of the Torah. For this reason and others many Jews eat pomegranates on the Jewish New Year Festival (Rosh Hashanah). Jewish tradition also holds that the pointed calyx of the pomegranate is the original “design” for a royal crown.
The Babylonians believed chewing pomegranate seeds before battle made them invincible. The Qur’an mentions pomegranates three times, twice as examples of the good things God creates, once as a fruit found in the Garden of Paradise.
The pomegranate is only recently being grown outside of the Mediterranean area. In West Africa it has not yet become a popular fruit. Where it is known at all, it is called rummân (from Arabic). In Song 4.3 and 6.7 the refer-ences to the pomegranate are rhetorical. There a cultural equivalent representing redness or beauty could be used. Elsewhere in the Bible transliteration is advised, following a major language. The word pome simply means “fruit,” so the basic word to transliterate from is granate (compare granada in Spanish). A possible expression is “garinada fruit.” The Latin phrase Punica granatum for pomegranate means the “grenade” of Punica (= Carthage), a city in present-day Tunisia. The Latin word granatum means “filled with many grains or seeds.” Reflecting this, Bambara of Guinea uses “karanati fruit.” One could also use the Hebrew rimmon as a base. Areas influenced by Arabic may find a word like rummân, for example, roomaanoo in Mandinka. A footnote could describe the fruit as similar to a guava, red and seedy.
Although the pomegranate has been introduced recently throughout Africa, it is not well-known, so the name will most likely need to be transliterated. As the English name is quite long, the translator is advised to translate from another source or look for ways to shorten it, such as “granata fruit.”
Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Exodus 39:24:
Kupsabiny: “(They) stitched on the lower side of that cloth/dress round things which were like fruits of a tree called pomegranate. (They) were woven with blue, purple and red threads.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
Newari: “Weaving pomegranates of blue, purple and red thread and of fine linen hanged them down the edges all around.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
Hiligaynon: “They hung around the hem of the clothes/garment of the things-like-fruit which is pomegranates, which is-made from the fine linen that has blue, purple, and red yarn.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
Bariai: “And also, they decorated the hem of the opening that long robe with needle thread which was red and somewhat red and blue. And they made that decoration to look like pomigranet tree fruit.” (Source: Bariai Back Translation)
Opo: “They reinforce its mouth with thread which be purple, and green/blue ones, and red ones, [so that] it resemble fruit.” (Source: Opo Back Translation)
English: “At the lower edge on the robe, they fastened decorations that resembled pomegranate fruit. The decorations were woven from blue, purple, and red yarn/thread.” (Source: Translation for Translators)
These verses refer to the instructions given in 28.33-34. They are not identical in wording, however. On the skirts of the robe is changed from “On its skirts,” but the meaning is the same. They made is changed from “you shall make.” Pomegranates of blue and purple and scarlet stuff is the same as 28.33, but the words and fine twined linen are added here. Literally the Hebrew has only “twisted,” which usually follows the word for fine … linen. A few translations relate this word to the blue and purple and scarlet stuff. For example, Revised English Bible translates it as “finely woven,” and New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh has “twisted,” referring to the same thing. For some reason this word is missing in the Masoretic Text, but it probably should be added here.
Bells of pure gold is changed from “bells of gold” in 28.33. And put the bells … changes the word order of 28.34. The verb put, literally “and they put,” is not used at all in 28.33-34. The bells, of course, refers to the “bells of gold,” as they are called in 28.33. The word gold is not repeated again here, in contrast to the repetition of “golden bell” in 28.34. Upon the skirts of the robe round about is the same as in 28.34, but it is advanced here in verse 25 before the repetition of verse 26. Between the pomegranates, literally “in the midst of the pomegranates,” is repeated twice here, whereas 28.33 has simply “between them” one time only.
The first part of verse 26 is identical with 28.34, except that “a golden bell” is simply a bell. The second part of verse 26 is added. For ministering is literally “to serve,” the same word used in 28.35. (See the comment there.) And for the fifth time the formula as the LORD had commanded Moses is added. (See the comment at verse 1 above.)
Quoted with permission from Osborn, Noel D. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on Exodus. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1999. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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