How do we translate the Scriptures into Toba? Sometimes we have to make choices, based on theological understanding and church teaching...

Now, taking into account the huge symbolic meaning of the whole passover meal, and the teaching over the centuries of the protestant church, this is how we translated it into Toba:

Which means: “While they were eating, then Jesus takes a bread and gives his thanks to God, he breaks it into pieces and he shares them round to his students, he says to them: ‘Take this, which is made now into a symbol of my flesh.’”

The Greek text of this verse says (with literal translation word for word):






The New International Version translates it as follows:

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”

Now, the problem in this verse is how to translate the words of Jesus, “Take it, this is my body.”  What did he actually mean by “this is my body”? - Literally, or symbolically?

Almost all English versions translate the text the same way, literally: “this is my body” (Exception: Moffatt “Take this, it means my body.”) Thus it is left up to the reader, and church tradition, to decide whether the communion bread is literally transformed into the body of Jesus, or whether we take the bread as a symbol of Jesus’ body, broken for us.

That’s ok in English, but in Toba it’s not that easy. If you have the text say, “this is my body”, then it’s understood literally: Jesus somehow gave bits of his body to the disciples to eat. But, if we want to suggest a symbolic meaning, we have to say something like, “this bread symbolises my body (which is about to be broken for you.)”