The new testament goodspeed
Reading this has made the New Testament seem genuinely new Hart s footnotes are some of the best I ve ever come across and I only wish that there were of them The language can be a bit clunky at times but a translation like this and really any translation could never aspire to compete with the King James bible English It is a little awkward to provide a star rating for a Bible but I am thinking here of the translation by David Bentley Hart I read this translation without any extra digging except for a few moments where I ran to the Greek text to see if what he was doing with the text was fair I don t precisely share Hart s religious perspective and I certainly don t share his social class both of these are essential to his translation but this is largely how I would do a literal Greek translation Indeed when I started reading the translation I got an eerie feeling that Hart was looking over my shoulder His translations sound like my teaching notes the ad hoc and planned translations I do for students when teaching Greek or upper levels of New Testament classes In that way this is an exciting and useful translation to read. Shortest book in the new testament Now that Hart has done it I now know that it would have been folly for me to spend five years producing a translation like this Not that I am not grateful but that my skills and desires really lie elsewhere. The New Testament philosophy See the rest of my review on my blog English I ve always thought the profession of Translator should be respected when dealing with a translation of the Bible All too many interpretations are taken from commonly accepted faulty translations and yet very few people are actually qualified to translate ancient Hebrew Aramaic and Greek from the original oldest sources Obviously I m not one of the those people so I can t really judge the accuracy of Hart s translations but at least it is something he takes very seriously His introductory and concluding chapters detail this In this translation he endeavors to not only provide an accurate translation dealing with words like spirit fornication eternity etc but also tries to convey the voice of the original text when it was erudite when coarse when not necessarily written by a native speaker etc The result is very interesting indeed Plus it gave me a chance to revisit the New Testament which like it or leave it is one of the main canonical texts of our age English Have yet to work through the entire thing but since I m moving back into the OT for a while I thought I might as well log it to say that the sections I did read the gospels Romans Galatians Hebrews James and Revelation are really something special Regardless of where you stand on Hart a thinker almost impossible to embrace entirely without reservation you d be hard pressed to deny this as anything less than a truly singular accomplishment one with the genuine means to open up Scripture its ambiguities complexities and literary brilliance in an unprecedented way Hart s insistent adherence to the syntactic roughness of the original text together with his impressive arsenal of precise strange and at times archaic language make this a document far removed from the idea of the Bible as a dime a dozen hardcover fit only for confinement to the backs of pews and the odd hotel drawer instead you are confronted by the urgency of these writers the frenzied awe and paradigmatic disruption of the early church and the uneasy feeling that the comfortable cultured church of today in my experience the 21st century American iteration of Kierkegaard s Christendom is perhaps not as Biblical as it so loves to proclaim As Hart himself admits this is not a work which lends itself especially readily for liturgical use its frequent shifts in tense are justified even enjoyable but distracting as are occasional instances of transliteration cool and essential to the project though they may be and a recurring motif of cosmic imagery in which Archons and Powers are exposed and imprisoned by Christ s entrance not into the lexically depleted world but into the very cosmos itself may be as unsettling as it is awe inspiring But it is certainly than worthy of consumption and contemplation in the hope of coming face to face perhaps in a brand new way with the words and the story of our Lord and those who first followed Him English I read the introduction and browsed the Gospels plus a bit of the Epistles Hart s scholarship is clearly first rate and his frequent notes on translations including alternate options and sometimes why he decided against them are enlightening. What is the first book of the new testament Most important Hart s translation of these familiar and beloved scriptures have an energy and immediacy to them This book might not replace a Christian s favorite translation but is likely to provide new inspiration and understanding English It s not your grandma s Bible. Book of the new testament As Hart explains in his ample prefatory remarks and postscript his purpose here is not to produce a pristine text refined for liturgical use and shaped by Nicene Constantinopolitan theology not because he thinks that theology is deficient or erroneous but because he believes it s important to recognize that the Greek is often vague enough that Arius Nestorius Sabellius Apollonarius Eunomius and all manner of heretics supported their teachings using the same verses that came to be interpreted according to orthodox christology and pneumatology but capture the tone and feel of the Greek text in all its rustic strangeness the frantic speed of Mark s Gospel the exemplary prose of Luke the vagaries of the introduction of John s Gospel is the Word a God THE GOD an agent of God Read to the end to find out the at times borderline syntactical incoherence of Paul and the profoundly maladroit language of John s Revelation Hart achieved his goal of rendering Greek in English rather than transposing it into English with as little doctrinal commitments as he could manage I deeply appreciated that through this unique translation I someone who doesn t read Greek could approach the Scriptures with all the confusion urgency and uncertainties of the original language as though reading them for the first time And as an Orthodox Christian I m grateful than ever to have the venerable guide rails of Holy Tradition the Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils steering me in the right understanding of these invaluable and very human texts English An astonishing achievement Hart completely pares back his usual pretentious verbosity in the introduction footnotes and postscript and somehow makes the New Testament truly new Just speaking for myself after reading the NT probably a dozen times in the last two decades it was becoming difficult to get a lot out of it I d read the Orthodox study bible HarperCollins study bible Holy Apostles Convent translation Third Millennium Bible not as weird as it sounds Orthodox New Testament Books of the Bible translation among my favorites the Interlinear Greek etc. Who wrote the book of james in new testament along with Patristic glosses on basically every passage so at a certain point I felt like there was nothing new the text could really teach me This isn t true of course there s always depth to the NT but I certainly hadn t been spending as much time with the NT as I had previously until now It is impossible to overstate how impressive Hart s translation is I ve seen some nit picking in reviews online and honestly could not possibly care less despite his pretentiousness Hart is among this generation s best theologians and knows Koine Greek extremely well I ll take his translation even if it goes out on a limb sometimes over literally anything that any of these critics have ever written It s a beautiful faithful and pleasantly jarring translation somewhat similar to Buber Rosenzweig s rendition of the Pentateuch into German and the world should be thankful to Hart for undertaking it An added bonus is that we get vintage Hart in the footnotes I d say an average of one footnote per page sometimes e. The new testament audio and text nkjv in the Epistle to the Romans with mini theological essays and insightful analyses of ambiguities in the Greek Though to be sure I m certainly not saying that Hart is theologically correct in every case he refers to his translation as the Universalist Translation and obviously his theology does not quite align with the Catholic or Orthodox traditions and certainly not with any Protestant tradition English Halfway through this translation I stumbled upon a description of Hart who I knew nothing about outside of his author blurb as an eccentric Eastern Orthodox socialist and there was a time in my life where those four words might have prompted me to immediately put the book down and possibly set it on fire Thankfully I ve grown out of being a judgmental dumbass and I was able to learn many new and valuable things from his labors here. The new testament has 27 books Hart meticulously documents his choices through footnotes and extensive pre and post textual essays so I won t repeat that here In lieu of a traditional review I thought it could be fun to list the things I learned about the Bible through Hart s commentary and choices that I did not learn in 3. The new testament audio and text nkjv 1 The intertestamental books referred to by Protestants somewhat rudely I now realize as the Apocrypha are extensively referenced in the epistles of Paul and assumed by many NT writers to be commonly known and understood by their intended audience So I m puzzled as to why I was taught that these books were heretical given Paul himself cited them as if not divinely inspired authoritative. Shortest book in the new testament 2 This was the first time I noticed that Paul himself referred to the Pentateuch as allegory or written allegorically by Moses And of course upon reflection the entire OT is largely in Christian interpretation allegorical of Christ So which one is going in the Evangelical garbage can the Pauline epistles or biblical literalism Kidding I m pretty sure intellectual dishonesty will continue to be the order of the day for the forseeable future 3 Reading Hart s notes while not his intention really hammered in for me the absurdity of claiming any one translation of the Bible could possibly be authoritative and the utter hubris of any human claiming to have full understanding of its contents Take for example the words of Jesus a Hebrew man speaking Aramaic which were then translated into Greek and then again into English by the use of numerous sources many of which contain small or large differences from each other even the ones that are historically contemporaneous Hart s essay on the translation of the Greek word aion aionios and Hebrew s lack of an equivalent conceptualization which nevertheless sometimes makes its way into English translations as eternal or everlasting though no such concept may have been implied in Greek and was impossible to convey in Hebrew was particularly fascinating. The new testament jericho brown 4 Bible translators from all ends of the political and theological spectrum are unified on many many subjects that theologians and pastors are divided on For example the unverified authorship of many New Testament epistles including Pauline epistles Kinda seems weird that the people authorized to teach the text to laypeople are often really bad at interpreting it despite many required Greek and Hebrew classes 5 Maybe it s just by nature of its novelty to me but Hart s argument for Universalism here is one I found to be textually supported and pretty convincing at least in terms of its argument against an eternal hell and in favor of eventual universal salvation There are of course many flavors of Universalism and that is but one variety I see he wrote a recent book on the subject and I m interested in checking that out especially after a search turned up a scolding and disappointed and borderline character assassination review from The Gospel Coalition. The new testament was written in I m not sure this particular translation will do much for anyone who isn t interested in the finer points of translation and Christian theology but if that sounds like you check it out English With this pitilessly literal translation of the New Testament Hart has sought to render the authentic texture of the Greek manuscripts in English with all their coarseness and obscurity intact Most modern translations have the effect intentional or otherwise of smoothing over the Greek prose artificially clarifying syntax and erasing stylistic differences between the New Testament authors for the sake of readability Hart sought to produce a translation that could illustrate how heretical exegetes like Arius Nestorius and Pelagius could have confidently supported their beliefs with the same passages the orthodox church invoked to anathematize them Though I don t agree with all of Hart s editorial choices I think he has succeeded in making the New Testament weird again Reading this translation brought home to me just how new the New Testament really was how common and fumbling and awkward and exasperated its originators how haphazard its compilation how bafflingly fortuitous its ascent in the literary world of Homer Sophocles Aeschylus Virgil Ovid and Seneca to say nothing of the Hebrew scriptures the distilled wisdom of a highly sophisticated literary culture to which the early Christians appealed With the possible exceptions of Luke and the author of Hebrews none of the New Testament writers were particularly well educated or literarily gifted Indeed some like the author of John s Gospel make Dan Brown look like Robert Graves These were men for whom the medium was but a rickety vehicle for the message and the message was of such urgency and profundity that it couldn t well be contained in language anyway Paul set aside not only the law of Moses but the laws of grammar as well producing prose faithfully rendered by Hart characterized by a peculiar combination of blistering rhetorical intensity and syntactical incoherence What then the Judaean s advantage or what Circumcision s profit A great deal in every way Firstly indeed they were entrusted with God s oracles What then If some were unfaithful will their infidelity annul God s fidelity Let it not be so But let God be truthful and every man a liar as has been written So that you might be vindicated in your words and may prevail when you are judged And if our injustice secures God s justice what shall we say That the God who enforces this indignation is unjust I speak in human terms Let it not be so Else how will God judge the cosmos Yet if through my falsehood God s truth overflowed to this glory why am I still also judged as a sinner And why not as we are slandered and as some claim we say Let us do evil things that good things may come on them the verdict is just What then Are we excellent Not at all Romans 3 1 9 You can almost hear Paul s voice becoming high pitched and strained as the passages roll on The koine Greek of Paul and the Evangelists contrasts strikingly with say the Qur an which is still held up as the pinnacle of the Arabic language Modern Arabic may be said to have emerged from the Qur an one couldn t imagine saying such a thing about the New Testament s influence on any language despite the best efforts of King James s luminaries But what the New Testament lacks in eloquence it makes up for in charm Who isn t endeared by Rhoda the servant girl from the Acts of the Apostles who upon hearing Peter s voice at the door leapt up and ran into the other room to tell the others that Peter had escaped from prison but in her excitement forgot to let him in Or the fact that John at the end of his Gospel felt the need to mention that he ran faster than Peter to the empty tomb on Easter It is somehow fitting to the character of Christianity that its central texts are a collection of all too human voices stories jokes admonitions consolations apocalyptic pronouncements and letters to friends It has something intriguing to say in the midst of all its arguing and allegorizing about the intersection of literature and life I would also like to point out that the man who preached these things under the marble columns of Athens and Rome was according to the earliest physical description of the man less than five feet tall and had bowed legs a ruddy complexion a unibrow and a hooked nose May Paul stand as an inspiration to all of us homely men through whom God may still work to renew a world that swipes left on us as it did on Him Amen English First off I m not qualified to comment on the Greek English translation as 95% of the Greek I learned 17 years ago in seminary is long gone. The new testament books That said this is a refreshing translation Hart sought to be as literal as possible retaining the awkwardness of the Greek This is seen in the gospels where there is a whole lot of action words Rather than Jesus being said to have done something he is doing it now It lends a urgent feel. The new testament canon Overall it s not a translation to be read in church But if you ve read the same translation over and over it is worth your time Honestly the introduction and note at the end are worth the price of the book Hart talks about how bad translations led to Augustine s theology which led to Calvin and pretty much ruined western Christianity Oh he also shows an eternal hell is nowhere to be seen in the NT Overall the notes are great and the translation is fun English
The New Testament By David Bentley Hart |
0300186096 |
9780300186093 |
English |
616 |
Hardcover |
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