Translate, Literally Translate or Transliterate.

[37818]

Baptism is transliteration. Washing is a translation. Immersion is litereral translation.

 

[John of Japan]

William Carey and his translation teams always translated. One of them, Nathan Brown, later went to Japan and was on the committee of the Motoyaku (元訳, "first translation"), the first Japanese complete Bible effort. He insisted they translate, but the Presbyterian-led team refused and transliterated instead, so he started his own effort. His Japanese NT, translating as 浸礼 ("immersion ceremony"), was the first complete Japanese NT translation.

The Lifeline Japanese NT (ライフライン訳新約聖書) is thus only the second Japanese NT to actually translate the word.

When my team was contemplating this rendering, I took the problem here on this forum, and I'm pretty sure the consensus was to translate.

 

[Deacon]

Some other common words that are transliterated in the Bible:

• Adam
• Angel
• Cherubims (lol - a double plural in KJV)
• Christ

Rob