The New Testament: A Translation

This translation is included in many other translation I reference which is it's intended purpose. Some of the negative reviews by people that think a lot of themselves are ding some of the translations for technical reasons. They fail to understand that no translation is perfect and it doesn't need to be. The Spirit of the Word should be consumed as the meat and the letters spat out like hulls. These guys probably buy peanuts in the shell and probably complain that the shells get caught between their teeth.Other negative reviews also miss the point that bias will always be in men's translation from one language to the next. And when that biases is based on Truth and not centuries of a universally accepted mis-understanding then its a positive thing. I don't see the bias as misleading at all. In fact what some call universalism in reality is proclaiming God's true Grace. And too many man is either not willing to give God that authority, or else incapable.Just because God's true Grace goes over one's head and violates a person's carnal being by exposing ones diligence to retain their egos (free will) independance versus relinquishing it's right back to the One who gave it is a personal problem. A problem that shouldn't try and be imputed to others. We've had far too many centuries of teachers of the law Shanklin their congregants with yokes through poor interpretations.

First, let me say this is now one of the 4 translations I will refer to when studying a New Testament passage. Hart often catches a nuance of the Greek missed in most translations; I appreciate the attempt to leave well enough alone and not force an interpretive choice on readings where a double entendre was perhaps intended.... I won't go on to list all such favorables: most valuable of all, I think, is the opportunity Hart affords Christians to see the New Testament from an Eastern perspective, rather than through the prism of the Western (Roman Catholic/Protestant) theological tradition. Roman Catholics and Reformation-era Protestants have often viewed themselves as quite different traditions, whereas Orthodoxy sees them as different sides of the same coin. Roman Catholics and Protestants often have different answers, but they generally ask the same questions. Eastern Orthodoxy sometimes raises unique questions. As a pastor in the Reformed tradition, I'm thrilled that Hart's translation represents a tremendous widening of perspective and insight that can only enrich anyone's study of the New Testament.So why 4 instead of 5 stars? Despite his efforts to give us a nakedly literal translation, the author's antipathy to the Augustinian-Reformed tradition bleeds onto the page in ways that detract from his goals.For instance, his translation of Acts 13:48: "And hearing this, the gentiles were elated and gave glory to the Lord's word, and as many as were disposed to the life of the Age had faith." I can't find a way to insert the Greek alphabet here, so I will transliterate: the word he translates "disposed" is from the verb "tasso." To begin with, every one of my half dozen NT Greek lexicons gives similar definitions: "put in official rank or position" / "station (a person) in a certain place" / "appoint to" or "establish (a person) in" an office / "order" / "fix" / "determine" / "appoint" / "assign". [cf. Rom. 13:1, where the authorities are established/appointed by God]. Maybe the author would claim that he means "disposed" somewhat along those lines, but any native English speaker reading his translation will take it to mean that those gentiles who looked favorably on (or desired) the life of the Age, came to faith. That is misleading, at best.Furthermore, despite his general success in honoring tenses, moods, voices and the like, who would not take "disposed" as an active verb as he uses it here? "Tetagmenoi" is, in fact, a perfect, passive participle of "tasso". And there are no textual variants for that verb in Acts 13:48. Thus, it's a past tense verb where the appointing happened prior to the gentiles believing; and the appointing is what happened to them, not what they did. A literal translation would be something like: "...and they believed, as many as were having been appointed to the life of the Age." Modern translations may clean up the word order and replace the participle, but there's a reason they are in agreement on the gist of the verse, viz., it's pretty clear what Luke wrote. There's really no justification for Hart's deviation from the more traditional rendering.That's one example. No translation is perfect. No translation is free of biases, this one included.That said, I will enjoy having not only a fresh and exciting translation, but one oriented toward Orthodoxy's rich biblical and theological tradition.

I rarely pay much attention to new translations of the New Testament, since I normally read it in Greek. However, after reading a recent article by David Bentley Hart, I decided I needed to get his translation. I love it! He has an outstanding introduction and an exceedingly useful series of appendices (which he calls the Concluding Scientific Postscript). No one should read his translation without first reading the introduction and, preferably, the appendices as well. The appendices are a bit dense, so if you are not familiar with such material, you may just want to skim it to be generally aware of its content. You can read specific sections as their content is relevant to a verse or passage in the translation. You absolutely must read "A Note on the Prologue of John's Gospel" (pp. 533-37) before beginning the Gospel of John.The style of this translation is both literal and literary. It is literal in the sense that it sticks very close to the Greek text, to the point of translating what are commonly called “historic present tense” verbs using the English present tense, even though the action is in the past. Hart does not smooth over the vague grammar and incomplete sentences that are not unusual in the writings of Paul, the book of Revelation and occasionally elsewhere in the NT. Hart's footnotes sometimes point out these features.The translation is literary in the sense that it uses language that sometimes feels archaic, including a number of very high-register words that most readers, even educated ones, will have to look up. One example is “tilth” in 1 Corinthians 3:9, which means 'cultivated land'. A peculiar feature of the translation is not specifically literary but more idiosyncratic, in my view. This is Hart's tendency to make heavy use of the English possessive suffix ('s) on inanimate nouns, where a construction with "of" is much more usual. For example, in Revelation 21:6, we read of "the fountain of life's water" rather than "the fountain of the water of life."Hart has included quite a few footnotes in this translation, though the number is not overwhelming. They do not appear on every page. Some, though, are quite long. The longer footnotes discuss information that would have been well known to the original writer and his audience, but which is unknown to most modern people. These notes have to do with people's understanding of the spiritual world in which they lived, historic events behind certain statements, and comments in the writings of the early Church Fathers.I highly recommend this translation to anyone who wants to have a better understanding of what the New Testament says, whether you are a scholar of Greek or you don't know a word of the language. David Bentley Hart reflects the meaning of the Greek text as closely as is possible in a translation, and does not follow the time-worn ruts of convention that have come to obscure the real sense of the text, which is often quite jarring to modern sensibilities, accustomed as they are to two millennia of interpretation and reading certain conventional meanings into the text. Hart's English renderings will open your eyes and make you think.

There are not many translations of the NT that are the work of one person; as Hart remarks, such collaborative efforts usually end up as a series of compromises that offend nobody in their bid for homologation (it is worthy of note that the Authorised Version is actually largely the work of that monumental scholar Tyndale, who paid the extreme penalty for his pains!) Hart, like Tyndale, takes his translation very close to the Greek text, and attempts to translate the literal meaning of the Greek words while still preserving an English tone of voice (in that wonderful old tradition of translation of the classics). He doesn't shrink from exposing the textual infelicities of Mark in his rendition by glossing and sweetening, and he refuses to use theologised meanings accepted by tradition. But I wonder to what extent he was able to bring out the very different styles of the Greek texts. Even the best - Luke or the anonymous author of Hebrews - were no great stylists, so perhaps the contrasts in style only really come out in the way the Greek is formed. But essential for a translator, Hart has a keen ear for the cadences of English and his renditions are far from the cloth-eared inadequacies of other attempts which we shall not name. The book is handsomely produced and sits very fittingly next to David Daniell's edition of William Tyndale on my shelf (and interestingly the Tyndale is also a Yale University Press edition). This is a translation I shall treasure.

The translation ends with a long article on how a certain section of the New Testament is in fact "untranslatable" (the prologue to St John's Gospel) Yes, perhaps. We all "translate" for ourselves as we go along, each in our own way - can we then commune with each other, each from our own home (or is it "mansion"?) Yes, I think so.As far as this translation is concerned, I'm not so sure about "for they imagine that they will be listened to by virtue of their prolixity" from the Sermon on the Mount. Mr Hart, judged on other works, appears to disdain a perfectly appropriate word, well known to those of limited vocabulary, in favour of one that gets me scuttling to the Dictionary. But no matter, I like the man - his writings and what I can make out of his theology.This translation has a sense of "immediacy" and seeks not to be an abstract representation of some literary fancy embalmed in time. It speaks. Communicates.I'm more into Buddhology myself having drifted east on my own path. Leaving behind many of the more obscene and ridiculous assertions of the average fundamentalist evangelical. Of course, out east, I've found much of the same so little is gained - except, perhaps, recognition of my own stupidities.Well, enough waffling. This is a fine translation for those seeking what could be called a "liberal study bible". Mr Hart seems to me quite sane.Thank you.

Bentley Hart's literal translation presents a learned reconstruction to awaken readers to the mystery,uncertainty and surprises of the New Testament world enabling the reader to 'hear' common meanings as our early Greek speaking Christian brothers (and sisters) would have done.Technically a representitve translation rather than explanative ,and all the better for that reason.It reminds me of the JB Phillips version I read during my search before becoming a committed Christian,a modern printed paperback ,without the conventional verse/paragraph pattern or glossary index(thus not a book to use in a formal setting)Footnotes are simply an attempt to give the reader as much access as possible to the original world in which the text was first written.For those so inclined there is a 70 page exhaustive postscript

First time I’ve actually cried reading certain parts of the New Testament...this translation brings the spiritual aspects to life...

Exactly the literal translation that's been missing. Exceptionally well done. If you don't have any Koine Greek to read the original texts, then this is the next best thing