During my most recent trip to Enga, I was working with the team on the Greek word that is often translated as ‘betray’ in English, but is more properly ‘hand over’ or ‘deliver up’. The Enga term we had been using was one that I had always had difficulty understanding. It was a two-word phrase, and I knew that the first word meant ‘take’, but I had always struggled to figure out what the second word ‘enge’ actually meant.
I came to find out that ‘enge’ actually means ‘peduncle’, which is a botanical term that means ‘the stalk bearing a flower or fruit’ (see the picture below), and particularly the peduncle of a banana plant. You can imagine that I had trouble seeing how ‘take peduncle’ could have anything to do with ‘hand over’, ‘deliver up’, or ‘betray’. But as the translation team and I discussed it further, the team explained that it was an idiom of sorts. You see, in the past, if someone were to steal a bunch of bananas that were growing in your garden, they would cut off the bananas and leave the peduncle hanging there. So the person whose bananas were stolen would take the peduncle as proof of the theft and give it to someone as a sign that he wished to have the thief killed. In common English terms, ‘take peduncle’ means ‘hire a hitman’ or ‘arrange a murder’, particularly one that would be carried out through trickery or deception.
As odd as that idiom seemed to me, it was certainly helpful in evaluating whether or not we had the right translation of ‘hand over’, ‘deliver up’, or ‘betray’. In Enga we were literally saying, “Judas took peduncle Jesus.” Based on the team’s explanation, I saw that our translation was incorrect because Judas did not hire a hitman to kill Jesus; rather, Judas himself received money to facilitate Jesus’ death. If anything, the Jewish leaders “took peduncle” Judas. Having discovered this mistranslation, we are now in the process of correcting it throughout the New Testament.
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| The peduncle of a banana plant in our neighbor's yard in Immi village |
Translation Progress
During my recent trip to Enga, in addition to refining our translation of ‘betray’, I was also able to complete the face-to-face portion of the consultant check for 1 Peter and 2 Peter. The team and I had already worked through the books remotely with a consultant who lives in America, but the last part of the consultant check is a face-to-face read-through of each book verse-by-verse, in which I ask comprehension questions to ensure proper understanding. The two men who came to check the books understood the translation quite well, and we only had to make minor adjustments here and there. We have also completed the remote checking for all the remaining New Testament books. All that is left to be done is the face-to-face read-through for Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Revelation, which we hope to complete in the next few months, contingent upon new COVID-19 travel restrictions.
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| The men involved in the consultant check of 1-2 Peter |
COVID
Speaking of COVID, until very recently, Papua New Guinea continued to register very few infections, but over the last couple of months, the number of infections and hospitalizations have been rising. As a result, tighter restrictions have been implemented by the government, limiting travel to other provinces to essential purposes only. While Bible translation does fall under the category of essential business travel, we will probably not return to our village house until the current surge of COVID cases in Papua New Guinea reverses, especially since when we are in the ‘village’, we are actually closer to highly populated areas and have a much more difficult time maintaining social distance. Please pray that the current surge will soon reverse its trajectory and that we will be able to travel to the village during the school break in June and July.
Teaching
Due to a shortage of teachers, in January Martha began teaching English for grades 6 and 7 at the Ukarumpa International School. It is her first time back in the classroom in fifteen years, and she is really enjoying teaching again. Please pray that more teachers would come as teacher shortages are a perennial problem here. And if you yourself are a teacher, we invite you to consider coming to Papua New Guinea and using your teaching skills to help the Bible translation community here. We sure could use your help!
