complete verse (John 5:41)

Following are a number of back-translations of John 5:41:

  • Uma: “‘I do not ask to be honored by men.” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
  • Yakan: “Isa said also to the Yahudi leaders, ‘I am not striving that mankind will praise me.” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
  • Western Bukidnon Manobo: “I am not looking for the praise of people because” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
  • Kankanaey: “‘I don’t need people to praise-me, but even if I did need it, it isn’t you who will praise-me,” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
  • Tagbanwa: “It’s not that what I am drawing out is praise from people.” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
  • Tenango Otomi: “I am not hunting for someone to praise me.” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)

formal pronoun: Jesus addressing his disciples and common people

Like many languages (but unlike Greek or Hebrew or English), Tuvan uses a formal vs. informal 2nd person pronoun (a familiar vs. a respectful “you”). Unlike other languages that have this feature, however, the translators of the Tuvan Bible have attempted to be very consistent in using the different forms of address in every case a 2nd person pronoun has to be used in the translation of the biblical text.

As Voinov shows in Pronominal Theology in Translating the Gospels (in: The Bible Translator 2002, p. 210ff. ), the choice to use either of the pronouns many times involved theological judgment. While the formal pronoun can signal personal distance or a social/power distance between the speaker and addressee, the informal pronoun can indicate familiarity or social/power equality between speaker and addressee.

Here, Jesus is addressing his disciples, individuals and/or crowds with the formal pronoun, showing respect.

In most Dutch translations, Jesus addresses his disciples and common people with the informal pronoun, whereas they address him with the formal form.

1st person pronoun referring to God (Japanese)

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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 first person singular and plural pronoun (“I” and “we” and its various forms) as shown here in the widely-used Japanese Shinkaiyaku (新改訳) Bible of 2017. The most commonly used watashi/watakushi (私) is typically used when the speaker is humble and asking for help. In these verses, where God / Jesus is referring to himself, watashi is also used but instead of the kanji writing system (私) the syllabary hiragana (わたし) is used to distinguish God from others.

(Source: S. E. Doi, see also S. E. Doi in Journal of Translation, 18/2022, p. 37ff. )

See also pronoun for “God”.

Translation commentary on John 5:41

In verse 34 Jesus said it was not necessary for him to have a man’s witness, and in this verse he states that he is not looking for human praise. The word praise is the word usually translated “glory” in this Gospel. In Greek it appears first in this sentence, and so is emphatic. In 7.18 this word appears as glory, in 8.50 as honor, and in 12.43 as approval. “Praise,” “glory,” “honor,” and “approval” all cover essentially the same area of meaning. In the present verse New English Bible renders it “honor”; Jerusalem Bible and Phillips “approval”; Moffatt “credit”; and New American Bible “praise.”

The verb looking for is literally “receive,” but it appears in a variety of ways in the translations. New English Bible translates the whole verse “I do not look to men for honor”; Moffatt “I accept no credit from men”; Jerusalem Bible “As for human approval, this means nothing to me.”

I am not looking for human praise involves certain subtle problems of translation: (1) looking must not be understood in the literal sense of “seeing”; (2) it is normal for an expression of praise to require men as a subject. It is possible to restructure the sentence in some languages as “I am not trying to get people to praise me” or “It is not my desire that people honor me.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .