The Greek that is translated into English as “crucify” is translated in various ways:
Naro: xgàu or “to stretch” (as is done with a skin after slaughtering in order to dry it. The word is also widely accepted in the churches.) (Source: Gerrit van Steenbergen)
Yatzachi Zapotec: “fasten him to the cross” (source for this and two above: M. Larson / B. Moore in Notes on Translation February 1970, p. 1-125)
Noongar: “kill on a tree” (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
Apali: “nail to a tree piece put cross-wise, lift up to stand upright (for the crucified person) to die (and in some contexts: “to die and rise again”)” (source: Martha Wade)
In British Sign Language it is signed with a sign that signifies “nails hammered into hands” and “arms stretched out.” (Source: Anna Smith)
“Crucify” or “crucifixion” in British Sign Language (source: Christian BSL, used with permission)
Following is a painting by Wang Suda 王肅達 (1910-1963):
Housed by Société des Auxiliaires des Missions Collection – Whitworth University
(click image to enlarge)
Image taken from Chinese Christian Posters . For more information on the “Ars Sacra Pekinensis” school of art, see this article , for other artworks of that school in TIPs, see here.
Click or tap here to see a short video clip showing how crucifixion was done in biblical times (source: Bible Lands 2012)
The Greek that is translated as “betray” in English does not have an immediately corresponding term in Tado. The term that was chosen there was “sell.” (Source: Budy Karmoy in this blog post )
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)
Following are a number of back-translations of Matthew 20:19:
Uma: “After that, I will be offered/handed-over to people who are not Yahudi people, mocked, slapped, and killed on a cross. But on the third day I will come alive again.'” (Source: Uma Back Translation)
Yakan: “Then they will hand me over to the authority of the people who are not Yahudi. And these other tribes will make fun of me, and they will beat me and then they will nail me onto a post. But on the third day, I will live again.'” (Source: Yakan Back Translation)
Western Bukidnon Manobo: “And they will hand me over to the people who are not Jews, as for the peole who aren’t Jews, they will treat me like a plaything. They will beat me, and they will nail me to a cross because they will kill me. And within three days from then, God will raise me from the dead.'” (Source: Western Bukidnon Manobo Back Translation)
Kankanaey: “then they will hand-me-over to the Gentil so that they will mock-me and repeatedly-whip-me and then they will nail me to the cross, but on the third day however, I will live again.'” (Source: Kankanaey Back Translation)
Tagbanwa: “And I will be handed-over to people who aren’t Judio. I will be really mocked/scorned, whipped and nailed to a cross. But it’s certain that on the third day, I will be made alive again.'” (Source: Tagbanwa Back Translation)
Tenango Otomi: “Then they will deliver him to the people who are not Jews. They will make fun of him, whip him, and put him on the cross to kill him. But on the third day he will resurrect.'” (Source: Tenango Otomi Back Translation)
God transcends gender, but most languages are limited to grammatical gender expressed in pronouns. In the case of English, this is traditionally confined to “he” (or in the forms “his,” “him,” and “himself”), “she” (and “her,” “hers,” and “herself”), and “it” (and “its” and “itself”).
Modern Mandarin Chinese, however, offers another possibility. Here, the third-person singular pronoun is always pronounced the same (tā), but it is written differently according to its gender (他 is “he,” 她 is “she,” and 它/牠 is “it” and their respective derivative forms). In each of these characters, the first (or upper) part defines the gender (man, woman, or thing/animal), while the second element gives the clue to its pronunciation.
In 1930, after a full century with dozens of Chinese translations, Bible translator Wang Yuande (王元德) coined a new “godly” pronoun: 祂. Chinese readers immediately knew how to pronounce it: tā. But they also recognized that the first part of that character, signifying something spiritual, clarified that each person of the Trinity has no gender aside from being God.
While the most important Protestant and Catholic Chinese versions respectively have opted not to use 祂, some Bible translations do and it is widely used in hymnals and other Christian materials. Among the translations that use 祂 to refer to “God” were early versions of Lü Zhenzhong’s (呂振中) version (New Testament: 1946, complete Bible: 1970). R.P. Kramers (in The Bible Translator 1956, p. 152ff. ) explains why later versions of Lü’s translation did not continue with this practice: “This new way of writing ‘He,’ however, has created a minor problem of its own: must this polite form be used whenever Jesus is referred to? Lü follows the rule that, wherever Jesus is referred to as a human being, the normal tā (他) is written; where he is referred to as divine, especially after the ascension, the reverential tā (祂) is used.”
In that system one kind of pronoun is used for humans (male and female alike) and one for natural elements, non-liquid masses, and some spiritual entities (one other is used for large animals and another one for miscellaneous items). While in these languages the pronoun for spiritual entities used to be employed when referring to God, this has changed into the use of the human pronoun.
Lynell Zogbo (in The Bible Translator 1989, p. 401ff. ) explains in the following way: “From informal discussions with young Christians especially, it would appear that, at least for some people, the experience and/or concepts of Christianity are affecting the choice of pronoun for God. Some people explain that God is no longer ‘far away,’ but is somehow tangible and personal. For these speakers God has shifted over into the human category.”
In Kouya, God (the Father) and Jesus are referred to with the human pronoun ɔ, whereas the Holy Spirit is referred to with a non-human pronoun. (Northern Grebo and Western Krahn make a similar distinction.)
Eddie Arthur, a former Kouya Bible translation consultant, says the following: “We tried to insist that this shouldn’t happen, but the Kouya team members were insistent that the human pronoun for the Spirit would not work.”
In Burmese, the pronoun ko taw (ကိုယ်တော်) is used either as 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (he, him, his) reference. “This term clearly has its root in the religious language in Burmese. No ordinary persons are addressed or known by this pronoun because it is reserved for Buddhist monks, famous religious teachers, and in the case of Christianity, the Trinity.” (Source: Gam Seng Shae in The Bible Translator 2002, p. 202ff. )
In Thai, the pronoun phra`ong (พระองค์) is used, a gender-neutral pronoun which must refer to a previously introduced royal or divine being. Similarly, in Northern Khmer, which is spoken in Thailand, “an honorific divine pronoun” is used for the pronoun referring to the persons of the Trinity (source: David Thomas in The Bible Translator 1993, p. 445 ). In Urak Lawoi’, another language spoken in Thailand, the translation often uses tuhat (ตูฮัด) — “God” — ”as a divine pronoun where Thai has phra’ong even though it’s actually a noun.” (Source for Thai and Urak Lawoi’: Stephen Pattemore)
The English “Contemporary Torah” addresses the question of God and gendered pronouns by mostly avoiding pronouns in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (unless God is referred to as “lord,” “father,” “king,” or “warrior”). It does that by either using passive constructs (“He gave us” vs. “we were given”), by using the adjective “divine” or by using “God” rather than a pronoun.
Some Protestant and Orthodox English Bibles use a referential capitalized spelling when referring to the persons of the Trinity with “He,” “His,” “Him,” or “Himself.” This includes for instance the New American Standard Bible or The Orthodox New Testament, but most translations do not. Two other languages where this is also done (in most Bible translations) are the closely related Indonesian and Malay. In both languages this follows the language usage according to the Qur’an, which in turn predicts that usage (see Soesilo in The Bible Translator 1991, p. 442ff. and The Bible Translator 1997, p. 433ff. ).
Living Water is produced for the Bible translation movement in association with Lutheran Bible Translators. Lyrics derived from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®).
In Good News Translation this verse is a continuation of the last sentence begun in verse 18. In the Greek text verses 17-19 comprise only one sentence (see Revised Standard Version), but the places at which new sentences are begun will depend entirely upon the demands of the receptor language. In any case the subject of deliver is still the chief priests and the teachers of the Law.
Deliver is the same word as in the previous verse.
Gentiles (the word used by most English translations) translates the Greek word most frequently used of non-Jews. “Non-Jews” is certainly the most common rendering, but New English Bible translates “the foreign power,” and Phillips has “the heathen.” Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch translates “the foreigners who do not know God.”
Mocked (Good News Translation “make fun of”) translates the same verb used in 27.29, 31, 41; elsewhere it is used only in 2.16.
Scourged: prisoners condemned to death were beaten with a whip before being executed. This punishment was severe, and it was illegal to beat a Roman citizen with a whip (see Acts 22.25, where a different word is used of the same kind of beating). Some translations have had simply “beat,” but the word here means “beat with a whip,” so “flog” or “whip” will be better.
Crucified indicates execution by Roman authorities. Jewish execution was of four kinds: stoning, burning (pouring a heated substance down a person’s throat), beheading, and strangling. Crucifixion involved attaching someone to crossed wooden beams or boards (usually by nailing) and leaving him hanging there until he died. If the translation does not indicate clearly to readers that crucified includes the semantic feature of execution or death (for example, “nailed to boards” may not clearly imply death), then the thrust of what Jesus is saying is lost. So this feature needs to be made explicit in the translation; for example, translators can say “executed (or, killed) on a cross” or “executed by being nailed to crossed boards.”
On the third day (so also New Jerusalem Bible, New English Bible), the same expression used in 16.21 and 17.23, is translated “three days later” by Good News Translation. The form of the expression is slightly different from the parallel in Mark 10.34 (literally “after three days”).
Will be raised (New English Bible “will be raised to life again”) translates the same verb form used in 17.23 (see comment there and at 16.21). As there, if the passive form cannot be used, then the agent, God, can be made explicit: “God will raise him to life again.”
Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on the Gospel of Matthew. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1988. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .
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