Text:

After leuka lian ‘exceedingly white’ Textus Receptus adds hōs chiōn ‘as snow,’ which is omitted by all modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

ta himatia (cf. 2.21) ‘clothes,’ ‘garments.’

stilbonta leuka lian ‘glistening, extremely white,’ ‘shining (and) very white.’

stilbō (only here in the N.T.) ‘shine,’ ‘be radiant’; Moulton & Milligan, ‘glisten.’

leuka (16.5) ‘white’; perhaps (cf. Mt. 17.2 and Lk. 9.29) ‘shining,’ ‘brilliant,’ ‘bright.’

lian (cf. 1.35) ‘very,’ ‘exceedingly.’

hoia gnapheus epi tēs gēs ou dunatai houtōs leukanai literally ‘such as a fuller on the earth is not able in this manner to bleach (them)’: by means of a construction very common in the N.T., ‘any fuller on earth cannot’ is the equivalent of saying ‘no fuller on earth can.’

hoia (13.19) is a relative pronoun of quality ‘what sort of,’ ‘such as’: here neuter plural, as its antecedent is ta himatia ‘the clothes,’ and in the accusative case as the object of the verb leukanai ‘to make white.’

gnapheus (only here in the N.T.) ‘bleacher,’ ‘fuller’: one who cleans woolen cloth.

epi tēs gēs ‘on the earth’: this phrase in Mark appears with the following meaning: (1) ‘on the soil’ (of sowing) 4.26, 31a; (2) ‘on the ground’ 8.6; 9.20; 14.35; (3) ‘on (the) land’ (as opposed to the sea) 4.1; 6.47; (4) ‘on the earth,’ i.e. ‘in the world’ 2.10; 4.31b. Although it has been suggested that the phrase here means ‘on the ground’ (in accordance with the way in which clothes are bleached in the East), the overwhelming majority of commentators and translators understand the phrase here ‘on the earth,’ that is, ‘no fuller on earth.’

leukainō (only here in Mark) ‘to make white,’ ‘to bleach.’

Translation:

Became glistening may be translated as ‘began to shine’ or ‘became very bright.’

Some languages have two words for ‘white,’ one designating the kind of dull white of chalk and another the brilliant white of crystals. This latter type of color would undoubtedly be the closer equivalent.

If one follows a more accurate Greek text, ‘as snow’ does not occur, but where it is necessary to conform to a text based on the Textus Receptus, the problem of rendering ‘snow’ naturally arises. Solutions have been quite varied, e.g. ‘volcano frost’ (San Miguel El Grande Mixtec), in which ‘frost’ is a well known substance and the snow on the distant volcanoes is regarded as ‘volcano frost.’ Other renderings are ‘frost’ (Tzeltal) and ‘white rain,’ though this is the general term for hail (Kituba). In Shipibo-Conibo the more natural way of speaking would be ‘white as peeled cassava’ (or ‘manioc’). When in a language such as Shipibo-Conibo there is a traditional term or idiom widely used to express precisely this type of comparison this may be substituted, for the reaction of educated readers (who might later learn about snow as a substance quite different from cassava) would be that ‘white as peeled cassava’ was simply their traditional way of saying the same thing, as ‘white as snow.’ However, it is not wise to introduce some comparison which is not within the traditional range of expression, for this would be regarded not as another equally valid means of comparison but an incorrect association. For example, one can translate in some languages ‘white as egret feathers’ but if ‘egret feathers’ are not habitually spoken of as a standard of whiteness in this type of idiom, there is no corresponding cultural equivalence between ‘white as snow’ and ‘white as egret feathers.’ It is only if the two expressions are both well established similes and would be identified by bilingual speakers as essentially identical that one should substitute one element in a figure of speech for another.

Fuller may be simply ‘washer woman’ in some languages.

On earth may be ‘in all the world’ or ‘anywhere,’ e.g. ‘no person anywhere who washes (or ‘cleans’) clothes.’

Bleach is ‘make them white,’ or as in some instances ‘make them clean,’ since bleaching may not be known, and the ‘making of clothes white’ might be misleading, since it could refer to ruining the dye, rather than bleaching the cloth.

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .