What do you think?
Rate this book
The New Testament
From one of our most celebrated writers on religion comes this fresh, bold, and unsettling new translation of the New Testament
David Bentley Hart undertook this new translation of the New Testament in the spirit of “etsi doctrina non daretur,” “as if doctrine is not given.” Reproducing the texts’ often fragmentary formulations without augmentation or correction, he has produced a pitilessly literal translation, one that captures the texts’ impenetrability and unfinished quality while awakening readers to an uncanniness that often lies hidden beneath doctrinal layers.
The early Christians’ sometimes raw, astonished, and halting prose challenges the idea that the New Testament affirms the kind of people we are. Hart reminds us that they were a company of extremists, radical in their rejection of the values and priorities of society not only at its most degenerate, but often at its most reasonable and decent. “To live as the New Testament language requires,” he writes, “Christians would have to become strangers and sojourners on the earth, to have here no enduring city, to belong to a Kingdom truly not of this world. And we surely cannot do that, can we?”
David Bentley Hart undertook this new translation of the New Testament in the spirit of “etsi doctrina non daretur,” “as if doctrine is not given.” Reproducing the texts’ often fragmentary formulations without augmentation or correction, he has produced a pitilessly literal translation, one that captures the texts’ impenetrability and unfinished quality while awakening readers to an uncanniness that often lies hidden beneath doctrinal layers.
The early Christians’ sometimes raw, astonished, and halting prose challenges the idea that the New Testament affirms the kind of people we are. Hart reminds us that they were a company of extremists, radical in their rejection of the values and priorities of society not only at its most degenerate, but often at its most reasonable and decent. “To live as the New Testament language requires,” he writes, “Christians would have to become strangers and sojourners on the earth, to have here no enduring city, to belong to a Kingdom truly not of this world. And we surely cannot do that, can we?”
616 pages, Hardcover
First published October 24, 2017
About the author
David Bentley Hart
40 books572 followersDavid Bentley Hart, an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion and a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator, is a fellow at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. He lives in South Bend, IN.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
March 16, 2021
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 more excellent? Not at all…” [Romans 3:1-9]
You can almost hear Paul’s voice becoming more 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.
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 more excellent? Not at all…” [Romans 3:1-9]
You can almost hear Paul’s voice becoming more 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.
March 21, 2024
An astonishing achievement. Hart completely pares back his usual pretentious verbosity (in the introduction, footnotes . . . and somewhat in the 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 more 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., 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 more 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 more, e.g., in the Epistle to the Romans) with mini-theological essays and insightful analyses of ambiguities in the Greek.
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 -- and his postscript is snarky nonsense (later expanded into an entire book of snarky nonsense, i.e. That All Shall Be Saved), where he just rambles on and on about his pet theories regarding eschatology etc. But thankfully it's easy to ignore Hart being Hart and simply appreciate his translation, which is truly a thing of beauty.
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 more 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., 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 more 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 more, e.g., in the Epistle to the Romans) with mini-theological essays and insightful analyses of ambiguities in the Greek.
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 -- and his postscript is snarky nonsense (later expanded into an entire book of snarky nonsense, i.e. That All Shall Be Saved), where he just rambles on and on about his pet theories regarding eschatology etc. But thankfully it's easy to ignore Hart being Hart and simply appreciate his translation, which is truly a thing of beauty.
March 27, 2018
It's not your grandma's Bible.
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 more 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.
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 more 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.
October 1, 2020
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.
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 3.5 years of attending Bible College.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 3.5 years of attending Bible College.
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.
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.
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.
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!
August 3, 2019
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.
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 more urgent feel.
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.
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 more urgent feel.
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.
January 9, 2023
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 more 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.
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 more 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.
March 11, 2019
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.
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.
See the rest of my review on my blog: https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2019/03/....
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.
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.
See the rest of my review on my blog: https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2019/03/....
Read
January 27, 2023At once refined and vulgar, foreign and familiar - though not nearly as enjoyable or poetic a translation as the KJV - Hart has successfully managed to create an entertaining and thought provoking New Testament translation that I'll certainly return to again.
*Late night pharmaceutical advertisement voice*This translation is not intended for Fundamentalists, American Evangelicals, Augustinians, or manualist Thomists, all deconstructing Christians should talk to their counselor before reading this translation.
Some individuals have reported the sudden urge to read Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Origen upon reading this translation. Side effects may include Universalist soteriology, Monism, Neoplatonism, and an enormous phallus.
*Late night pharmaceutical advertisement voice*This translation is not intended for Fundamentalists, American Evangelicals, Augustinians, or manualist Thomists, all deconstructing Christians should talk to their counselor before reading this translation.
Some individuals have reported the sudden urge to read Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Origen upon reading this translation. Side effects may include Universalist soteriology, Monism, Neoplatonism, and an enormous phallus.
December 31, 2020
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 more 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.
March 30, 2021
The attempt is appreciable, but the result is disappointing.
David Bentley Hart aims to be "pitilessly literal", but this book frequently alternates between a pitifully unliterary translation and a pretentiously elitist commentary.
Would not recommend.
David Bentley Hart aims to be "pitilessly literal", but this book frequently alternates between a pitifully unliterary translation and a pretentiously elitist commentary.
Would not recommend.
February 29, 2024
I love when a translation jars me out of my comfort. It's easy to skim a text I've heard my whole life, but when there are unique turns of phrase, it causes me to stop and think about it. David Bentley Hart's translation had that impact. Here are a few examples. The Gospel writers often used the present tense when speaking of what happened. Most translations maintain a past tense since the events happened in the past. Hart maintains the tense ("and Jesus says..."). It gives an immediacy to the events, like you are there as they are happening.
One example of a translation choice is to use Cosmos instead of World or Earth. Again, it's a choice that made me think. I didn't like it. Cosmos for me is so different from what I think of when I think of World. That startled me throughout the reading. Thankfully, Hart addressed that choice, and many others, in the postscript.
I really enjoyed his introduction and postscript. In the introduction, Hart distinguishes between translation by committee vs translation by individual, and the pros/cons of each approach. In the postscript, Hart highlights the particular translation choices he made and why he made them. I'm glad he waited until the end to do that so that the full force of the differences (from other translations) could first be felt and then understood.
One example of a translation choice is to use Cosmos instead of World or Earth. Again, it's a choice that made me think. I didn't like it. Cosmos for me is so different from what I think of when I think of World. That startled me throughout the reading. Thankfully, Hart addressed that choice, and many others, in the postscript.
I really enjoyed his introduction and postscript. In the introduction, Hart distinguishes between translation by committee vs translation by individual, and the pros/cons of each approach. In the postscript, Hart highlights the particular translation choices he made and why he made them. I'm glad he waited until the end to do that so that the full force of the differences (from other translations) could first be felt and then understood.
December 2, 2021
I've always thought the profession of Translator should be more 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 more 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.
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 more 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.
September 15, 2023
This review covers both the first and second edition. I prefer the second edition.
I love this translation, because I can read it without constant reminders of my 40 years of wandering through the deserts of various Protestantisms. This translation was done by someone who reads classical Greek, and who has read more Greek literature than just the Bible. Unlike translations by committees, this translation has a singular voice. It hasn't been dumbed down to some lowest common denominator, nor has it had 2,000 years of doctrinal development imposed upon it. It preserves, and even celebrates, the ambiguities of the original text. The translator's introduction, the appendices, and the copious notes help the reader understand the intent of this translation, why it reads so differently than we are used to, and why that is a good thing. I cannot praise this translation highly enough.
I love this translation, because I can read it without constant reminders of my 40 years of wandering through the deserts of various Protestantisms. This translation was done by someone who reads classical Greek, and who has read more Greek literature than just the Bible. Unlike translations by committees, this translation has a singular voice. It hasn't been dumbed down to some lowest common denominator, nor has it had 2,000 years of doctrinal development imposed upon it. It preserves, and even celebrates, the ambiguities of the original text. The translator's introduction, the appendices, and the copious notes help the reader understand the intent of this translation, why it reads so differently than we are used to, and why that is a good thing. I cannot praise this translation highly enough.
January 25, 2018
A refreshing new translation be David Bentley Hart ... for example, instead of the Hebrew title "Messiah," or the Greek "Christ," this translation uses "The Anointed One" ... rather than "repentance," "change of heart" is used ... most insightful are the notes on the translation at the end of each book, and in the Postscript at the end ... its aim of presenting the material free from any dogmatism is laudable ... its identification of the dilemmas and perils of translation are enlightening ...
February 9, 2018
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.
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.
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.
May 3, 2019
Top drawer translation of the New Testament and a reminder of the philosophical tension between the revolutionary message of the Christ story and the creation of Christendom with its power attached to the imperialist Roman Empire. Invaluable addition to the permanently assembled stack on the bedside table.
September 3, 2019
Roman elites in the early centuries of Christianity were not especially impressed with the literary quality of the New Testament, and David Bentley Hart’s revolutionary translation shows why. While certain books evidence impressive literary craftsmanship, most notably the Letter to the Hebrews, the Gospel of Luke, and the Acts of the Apostles, the New Testament texts are on the whole uneven, syntactically obtuse, somewhat frenetic, and above all, zealous to share the Good News about Jesus “the Anointed’s” redemption of humanity. Whereas most committee translations of the Bible iron out these uneven elements of the New Testament text, Hart chooses to preserve them to whatever extent possible, such that his translation is radically literal—one irony of which is that such a faithful translation renders literalist interpretations indefensible. Hart therefore retains the text’s sudden shifts of tense, chooses not to fill in syntactical lacunae, and refuses to use more delicate words when a more literal, perfectly suitable word is possible (like when he translates “foreskin” rather than “uncircumcision,” or “slave” of Christ rather than “servant” (cf. Romans 1:1)). While Hart’s task may seem rather modest, even dubiously transparent, the effect of his literalist approach is transformative. Suddenly, these texts come alive and confront the reader as they often fail to do in committee translations, both in terms of style and content. As Hart frankly observes, while “most of the authors of the New Testament did not write particularly well,” its authors evince a charismatic “intensity, purity, and perhaps naivete” in their efforts to communicate their witness to the new faith. Hart notes that Paul, for example, “possess an elemental power born out of the passion of his faith and the marvel of what he believes has been revealed to him,” and his prose—“sometimes inept, and occasionally incoherent”—reflects this, frequently punctuated with sublime lyricism somehow borne from syntactical confusion. Hart aims to capture this elemental power in his translation and, compared with most other standard translations of the Pauline corpus, unequivocally succeeds. In Hart’s translation, Paul and the other New Testament writers so earnestly demonstrate that their encounters with Christ utterly transformed their lives and the lives of those around them.
In addition to the revelatory aspects of Hart’s literalist approach which underscore how feverish these texts are, his translation also accentuates at least three other critical dimensions of the New Testament that I want to explore here: the texts’ prioritization of social justice and concern for the poor, the mistranslation of Romans 5:12 which erroneously implies humanity’s culpability in Adam’s sin, and universal salvation, or apokatastasis. As a preliminary note, I should address the possibility that the “literalist” moniker could serve as a convenient cover for Hart’s imposition of his own contested ideas on the New Testament text. On this view, Hart’s well-known defense of democratic socialism, his Eastern Orthodox-inflected beliefs on sin and sinfulness, and his defense of universalism, rather than derive from his intimate familiarity with the New Testament, in fact prejudice his so-called literalist translation that noticeably stresses these elements. I suppose there are at least two objections to this view. The first re-situates the debate to address either interpretations of the Greek text itself, or first-century cultural norms, or the connotations of specific New Testament words and metaphors; if Hart’s comprehension of Greek is as excellent as all evidence implies (he is, by the way, a trained classicist), if he is sufficiently well-informed about the intertestamental period and Jewish apocalypticism, and if, on account of the fact that the specific connotations of certain first-century words and phrases are simply inaccessible to modern scholars, Hart’s evidence-based defense of why he chose to translate those words and phrases as he did seems plausible, then there is little reason to suspect the sort of prejudiced translation to which this concern alludes. The second objection simply relies on Hart’s sincerity, evidenced in his informative introduction, his scrupulously detailed postscript, and his comments in interviews when pressed on this very point. By all accounts, it appears that Hart approached this task with as few biases as possible, except for the fact that he explicitly tried to eschew the myriad of basic confessional assumptions that typically accompany translations of the New Testament. For my part, I take him at his word.
In the introduction, Hart candidly notes that he himself was reminded just how social-justice-oriented the New Testament is when he started to translate the text. Examples abound. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus repeatedly stresses the importance of concern for the poor and the sinfulness of wealth: Matthew 25:31-46 insists on the centrality of compassion toward the needy and the socially excluded for life at the eschaton; the “Our Father,” a prayer handed down by Jesus himself, most directly concerns “bread for the day ahead,” literal debts incurred and hopefully excused, and “rescue . . . from him who is wicked,” i.e. one’s avaricious creditor; Jesus repeatedly implores his disciples to store up their treasure in heaven, not on earth; Matthew 19:23-26 entertains the disciples’ inquiry whether any rich men can attain salvation, to which Jesus somewhat evasively replies that, while for “men this is impossible,” for God all is possible; in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists that “the destitute, abject in spirit” are “blissful” (Hart’s translation of makarios, usually translated “blessed”) and especially favored by God; and we learn that the apostles voluntarily abandon their possessions to follow Jesus. There are many more examples; these are just some prominent ones that come to mind. Then, in the Acts of the Apostles and in numerous epistles, similar themes are similarly central. We learn in Acts that the early Christian community, led by the apostles, shared all their possessions in common; the practice is so important that the disciples Ananias and his wife Sapphira, who sell a piece of property yet keep some of the proceeds for themselves, are literally struck dead for their small act of selfishness (“Why did the Accuser (i.e. Satan in most translations) so fill your heart that you lie to the Spirit, the Holy One, and keep some of the proceeds from the land for yourself?” Peter furiously asks Ananias. “You did not lie to men, but to God,” he sharply adds before Ananias “falls down and yields up his soul”). The Letter of James, not incredibly written by Jesus’s own brother, condemns the rich in no uncertain terms: James 5:1-6 stipulates that miseries await “you who are rich,” whose riches “have spoiled” and “corroded” and “will eat your flesh like fire,” because “you have kept treasure in the last days.” Woe especially to those who fail to pay their workers in full; the payments themselves “clamor aloud, and the outcries of those who have reaped have entered the ears of the Lord Sabaoth.” In short, Hart’s literalist approach plainly demonstrates the social- and economic-justice core at the heart of the New Testament in a stark manner sometimes eschewed by more delicate translations. For one salient example of such delicacy, see Hart’s notes on Matthew 19:25: where most translations read, “Who then can be saved,” Hart explains why his translation (“Can any of them (i.e. rich men) then be saved”) is more accurate, albeit far more pointed than many readers would prefer.
In his footnotes, which, while not exhaustive, nevertheless helpfully explain many of Hart’s more contested translation choices, Hart repeatedly returns to the fact that interdenominational debates heavily influence most translations. For example, Hart insists that Paul simply does not speak of predestination and justification, as understood in Protestant traditions influenced by Luther and Calvin, even if there are some oft-misinterpreted textual bases for these ideas. When translators employ those words, they either implicitly or explicitly imply that such loaded ideas are self-evident in Paul. He similarly critiques the notion that Paul, with his emphasis on the necessity of faith alone for justification, contrasts the so-called Catholic epistles, which stress both faith and works: Paul claims that humans cannot be “justified” by “works of Law” (such as circumcision or kosher dietary practices), “but only by a ‘faithfulness’ that necessarily entails ‘works’ of love,” Hart writes—the dichotomy Paul draws concerns the Law of Moses, not works of mercy. Whereas these issues arise from questionable interpretations, however, one prominent mistranslation in Romans has proven especially consequential. In Romans 5:12, Jerome’s Latin translation claims that in Adam, all humanity sinned (quo omnes peccaverunt), whereas the Greek text unmistakably states that just as sin entered the cosmos with Adam’s sin and subsequently death entered from sin, “so also death pervaded all humanity, whereupon all sinned.” Whereas the Latin translation implies that all humans have sinned in Adam and that therefore all humans are born as sharers in Adam’s culpability, the Greek text indicates that all humans are sinners on account of death’s dissemination made possible by Adam’s sin. On this latter view, favored by the Eastern tradition, death and sin are not unlike “a disease with which all are born,” Hart explains, and he observes that elsewhere Paul “describes [sin] as a condition like civil enslavement to an unjust master, from which we must be ‘redeemed’ with a manumission fee; but never as an inherited condition of criminal culpability.” The difference is subtle, yet it has had massive implications for the Western tradition’s claims about human nature, the sacrament of baptism, and what is required for salvation, the last of which I now wish to turn in conclusion.
There is not sufficient room here to do justice to the complex topic of universalism, one of the more controversial ideas in the Christian tradition. Moreover, Hart is about to publish a book in defense of universalism later this month, which will no doubt stimulate more heated discussion. For now, it suffices to note that Hart’s translation, coupled with his postscript, elucidate just how little basis there is for eternal, conscious torment in the afterlife as punishment for sinfulness in this life—“the God of love’s perpetual torture chamber”—in the Gospels, and numerous formulations in Paul—like Romans 5:18, for example—seem to state that just as Adam’s sin permitted sin and death to infect everyone, so Christ’s act of redemption redeems absolutely everyone. Similarly, while not definitive on the question of universal salvation, Hart draws attention to 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, where “fire” appears to purify the condemned rather than punish them interminably: “Each one’s work will become manifest; for the Day will declare it, because it is revealed by fire, and the fire will prove what kind of work each person’s is. If the work that someone has built endured, he will receive a reward; if anyone’s work should be burned away, he will suffer loss, yet he shall be saved, though so as by fire,” Hart’s translation reads. He also points to the Greek word used for “punishment” in Matthew 25:46, a verse oft-cited as a definitive rejection of universalism, which is kolasis—“which typically refers to remedial punishment,” Hart writes, “rather than timōria, which typically refers to retributive justice” (he concedes, however, that this neat division is not conclusive). However one interprets specific verses, Hart nevertheless insists that “to read back into these texts either the traditional view of dual and in some sense synchronously eternal postmortem destines or the developed high mediaeval Roman Catholic view of an absolute distinction between “Hell” and “Purgatory” would be either (in the former case) a dogmatic reflex rather than an exegetical necessity or (in the latter) an act of simple historical illiteracy.” This is, of course, an extremely controversial and somewhat confrontational position, one which Hart will defend more comprehensively in his new book. Given the textual evidence Hart presents in his translation, his footnotes, and his postscript, however, it is more than reasonable that Christians dare to hope for the universal reconciliation of all human persons to God.
In the end, David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament confronts its readers with unexpected vitality and invites them to reconsider their most basic assumptions about the early Christian community, the bases for cherished doctrine, and perhaps even the identity and person of Jesus. It provides a useful counterpoint to the committee translations with which most Christian readers are familiar and, in contrast to those translations, appropriately jolts readers out of a certain comfortability with the text. For my part, Hart’s translation transformed my relationship with the text and reshaped how I understand the early Christian community’s radical orientation toward society and culture. I predict that Hart’s translation will soon serve, if not already, as a touchstone for all subsequent translations of one of the most influential and important texts in human history.
In addition to the revelatory aspects of Hart’s literalist approach which underscore how feverish these texts are, his translation also accentuates at least three other critical dimensions of the New Testament that I want to explore here: the texts’ prioritization of social justice and concern for the poor, the mistranslation of Romans 5:12 which erroneously implies humanity’s culpability in Adam’s sin, and universal salvation, or apokatastasis. As a preliminary note, I should address the possibility that the “literalist” moniker could serve as a convenient cover for Hart’s imposition of his own contested ideas on the New Testament text. On this view, Hart’s well-known defense of democratic socialism, his Eastern Orthodox-inflected beliefs on sin and sinfulness, and his defense of universalism, rather than derive from his intimate familiarity with the New Testament, in fact prejudice his so-called literalist translation that noticeably stresses these elements. I suppose there are at least two objections to this view. The first re-situates the debate to address either interpretations of the Greek text itself, or first-century cultural norms, or the connotations of specific New Testament words and metaphors; if Hart’s comprehension of Greek is as excellent as all evidence implies (he is, by the way, a trained classicist), if he is sufficiently well-informed about the intertestamental period and Jewish apocalypticism, and if, on account of the fact that the specific connotations of certain first-century words and phrases are simply inaccessible to modern scholars, Hart’s evidence-based defense of why he chose to translate those words and phrases as he did seems plausible, then there is little reason to suspect the sort of prejudiced translation to which this concern alludes. The second objection simply relies on Hart’s sincerity, evidenced in his informative introduction, his scrupulously detailed postscript, and his comments in interviews when pressed on this very point. By all accounts, it appears that Hart approached this task with as few biases as possible, except for the fact that he explicitly tried to eschew the myriad of basic confessional assumptions that typically accompany translations of the New Testament. For my part, I take him at his word.
In the introduction, Hart candidly notes that he himself was reminded just how social-justice-oriented the New Testament is when he started to translate the text. Examples abound. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus repeatedly stresses the importance of concern for the poor and the sinfulness of wealth: Matthew 25:31-46 insists on the centrality of compassion toward the needy and the socially excluded for life at the eschaton; the “Our Father,” a prayer handed down by Jesus himself, most directly concerns “bread for the day ahead,” literal debts incurred and hopefully excused, and “rescue . . . from him who is wicked,” i.e. one’s avaricious creditor; Jesus repeatedly implores his disciples to store up their treasure in heaven, not on earth; Matthew 19:23-26 entertains the disciples’ inquiry whether any rich men can attain salvation, to which Jesus somewhat evasively replies that, while for “men this is impossible,” for God all is possible; in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists that “the destitute, abject in spirit” are “blissful” (Hart’s translation of makarios, usually translated “blessed”) and especially favored by God; and we learn that the apostles voluntarily abandon their possessions to follow Jesus. There are many more examples; these are just some prominent ones that come to mind. Then, in the Acts of the Apostles and in numerous epistles, similar themes are similarly central. We learn in Acts that the early Christian community, led by the apostles, shared all their possessions in common; the practice is so important that the disciples Ananias and his wife Sapphira, who sell a piece of property yet keep some of the proceeds for themselves, are literally struck dead for their small act of selfishness (“Why did the Accuser (i.e. Satan in most translations) so fill your heart that you lie to the Spirit, the Holy One, and keep some of the proceeds from the land for yourself?” Peter furiously asks Ananias. “You did not lie to men, but to God,” he sharply adds before Ananias “falls down and yields up his soul”). The Letter of James, not incredibly written by Jesus’s own brother, condemns the rich in no uncertain terms: James 5:1-6 stipulates that miseries await “you who are rich,” whose riches “have spoiled” and “corroded” and “will eat your flesh like fire,” because “you have kept treasure in the last days.” Woe especially to those who fail to pay their workers in full; the payments themselves “clamor aloud, and the outcries of those who have reaped have entered the ears of the Lord Sabaoth.” In short, Hart’s literalist approach plainly demonstrates the social- and economic-justice core at the heart of the New Testament in a stark manner sometimes eschewed by more delicate translations. For one salient example of such delicacy, see Hart’s notes on Matthew 19:25: where most translations read, “Who then can be saved,” Hart explains why his translation (“Can any of them (i.e. rich men) then be saved”) is more accurate, albeit far more pointed than many readers would prefer.
In his footnotes, which, while not exhaustive, nevertheless helpfully explain many of Hart’s more contested translation choices, Hart repeatedly returns to the fact that interdenominational debates heavily influence most translations. For example, Hart insists that Paul simply does not speak of predestination and justification, as understood in Protestant traditions influenced by Luther and Calvin, even if there are some oft-misinterpreted textual bases for these ideas. When translators employ those words, they either implicitly or explicitly imply that such loaded ideas are self-evident in Paul. He similarly critiques the notion that Paul, with his emphasis on the necessity of faith alone for justification, contrasts the so-called Catholic epistles, which stress both faith and works: Paul claims that humans cannot be “justified” by “works of Law” (such as circumcision or kosher dietary practices), “but only by a ‘faithfulness’ that necessarily entails ‘works’ of love,” Hart writes—the dichotomy Paul draws concerns the Law of Moses, not works of mercy. Whereas these issues arise from questionable interpretations, however, one prominent mistranslation in Romans has proven especially consequential. In Romans 5:12, Jerome’s Latin translation claims that in Adam, all humanity sinned (quo omnes peccaverunt), whereas the Greek text unmistakably states that just as sin entered the cosmos with Adam’s sin and subsequently death entered from sin, “so also death pervaded all humanity, whereupon all sinned.” Whereas the Latin translation implies that all humans have sinned in Adam and that therefore all humans are born as sharers in Adam’s culpability, the Greek text indicates that all humans are sinners on account of death’s dissemination made possible by Adam’s sin. On this latter view, favored by the Eastern tradition, death and sin are not unlike “a disease with which all are born,” Hart explains, and he observes that elsewhere Paul “describes [sin] as a condition like civil enslavement to an unjust master, from which we must be ‘redeemed’ with a manumission fee; but never as an inherited condition of criminal culpability.” The difference is subtle, yet it has had massive implications for the Western tradition’s claims about human nature, the sacrament of baptism, and what is required for salvation, the last of which I now wish to turn in conclusion.
There is not sufficient room here to do justice to the complex topic of universalism, one of the more controversial ideas in the Christian tradition. Moreover, Hart is about to publish a book in defense of universalism later this month, which will no doubt stimulate more heated discussion. For now, it suffices to note that Hart’s translation, coupled with his postscript, elucidate just how little basis there is for eternal, conscious torment in the afterlife as punishment for sinfulness in this life—“the God of love’s perpetual torture chamber”—in the Gospels, and numerous formulations in Paul—like Romans 5:18, for example—seem to state that just as Adam’s sin permitted sin and death to infect everyone, so Christ’s act of redemption redeems absolutely everyone. Similarly, while not definitive on the question of universal salvation, Hart draws attention to 1 Corinthians 3:13-15, where “fire” appears to purify the condemned rather than punish them interminably: “Each one’s work will become manifest; for the Day will declare it, because it is revealed by fire, and the fire will prove what kind of work each person’s is. If the work that someone has built endured, he will receive a reward; if anyone’s work should be burned away, he will suffer loss, yet he shall be saved, though so as by fire,” Hart’s translation reads. He also points to the Greek word used for “punishment” in Matthew 25:46, a verse oft-cited as a definitive rejection of universalism, which is kolasis—“which typically refers to remedial punishment,” Hart writes, “rather than timōria, which typically refers to retributive justice” (he concedes, however, that this neat division is not conclusive). However one interprets specific verses, Hart nevertheless insists that “to read back into these texts either the traditional view of dual and in some sense synchronously eternal postmortem destines or the developed high mediaeval Roman Catholic view of an absolute distinction between “Hell” and “Purgatory” would be either (in the former case) a dogmatic reflex rather than an exegetical necessity or (in the latter) an act of simple historical illiteracy.” This is, of course, an extremely controversial and somewhat confrontational position, one which Hart will defend more comprehensively in his new book. Given the textual evidence Hart presents in his translation, his footnotes, and his postscript, however, it is more than reasonable that Christians dare to hope for the universal reconciliation of all human persons to God.
In the end, David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament confronts its readers with unexpected vitality and invites them to reconsider their most basic assumptions about the early Christian community, the bases for cherished doctrine, and perhaps even the identity and person of Jesus. It provides a useful counterpoint to the committee translations with which most Christian readers are familiar and, in contrast to those translations, appropriately jolts readers out of a certain comfortability with the text. For my part, Hart’s translation transformed my relationship with the text and reshaped how I understand the early Christian community’s radical orientation toward society and culture. I predict that Hart’s translation will soon serve, if not already, as a touchstone for all subsequent translations of one of the most influential and important texts in human history.
June 29, 2023
How could I not give the New Testament 5 stars!
This is very much a formal equivalent translation—Hart is less concerned about making it perfectly smooth English or translating based on what people are used to and more with trying to communicate the original as much as possible. (It might be even more strict than the NASB!) And yet it was still very readable, I thought.
For parts of it, I listened to the translation while I followed along with the Greek and it’s very close. If you don’t know Greek but want to get the feel of the Greek NT, this is a great translation to use!
(As a note, I’ve read a comment that this is not a trustworthy translation because of Hart’s universalist theology. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. There was one passage in the gospels with a challenging translation choice, and Hart picked the less common perspective possibly influenced by his theology. But I didn’t see any change in the translation because of universalism. He’s not trying to trick you to come to his side. All that to say, you don’t have to come to this translation with fear and trepidation. Enjoy.)
___
My ⭐️ rating criteria
- ⭐️: I absolutely did not like or totally disagreed with the book and would recommend that no one else read it
- ⭐️⭐️: the book was below average style or content, wouldn’t read it again, but wouldn’t beg people not to read it necessarily
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️: a fine book, some helpful information (or a decent story, for the handful of novels I read), didn’t disagree with too much, enjoyed it decently well
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: a very good book, information was very helpful, mostly agreed with everything or it was a strong argument even if I disagree, was above-average enjoyable to read
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: life-changing book, I enjoyed it more than most other books, I want to read it again in the future, I will be telling everyone to read it for the next few weeks
This is very much a formal equivalent translation—Hart is less concerned about making it perfectly smooth English or translating based on what people are used to and more with trying to communicate the original as much as possible. (It might be even more strict than the NASB!) And yet it was still very readable, I thought.
For parts of it, I listened to the translation while I followed along with the Greek and it’s very close. If you don’t know Greek but want to get the feel of the Greek NT, this is a great translation to use!
(As a note, I’ve read a comment that this is not a trustworthy translation because of Hart’s universalist theology. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. There was one passage in the gospels with a challenging translation choice, and Hart picked the less common perspective possibly influenced by his theology. But I didn’t see any change in the translation because of universalism. He’s not trying to trick you to come to his side. All that to say, you don’t have to come to this translation with fear and trepidation. Enjoy.)
___
My ⭐️ rating criteria
- ⭐️: I absolutely did not like or totally disagreed with the book and would recommend that no one else read it
- ⭐️⭐️: the book was below average style or content, wouldn’t read it again, but wouldn’t beg people not to read it necessarily
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️: a fine book, some helpful information (or a decent story, for the handful of novels I read), didn’t disagree with too much, enjoyed it decently well
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: a very good book, information was very helpful, mostly agreed with everything or it was a strong argument even if I disagree, was above-average enjoyable to read
- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: life-changing book, I enjoyed it more than most other books, I want to read it again in the future, I will be telling everyone to read it for the next few weeks
March 16, 2019
It’s a reasonable question to raise as to why an atheist such as myself would devote a significant amount of time to reading a new translation of the New Testament. It’s not even as if it’s a collection of books with which I’m unfamiliar, having been brought up first as an Anglican, then subsequently as an Evangelical Christian, the latter of which I thought I had a rather strong faith in as a teenager.
The main answer is that religion in all forms continues to fascinate me. The mysteries of Christianity perhaps more than most due to their familiarity. Secondarily, though, these books are the ones on which Western civilisation was founded. I don’t mean anything like the contention that our morality is entirely Christian (it’s not, although there’s a lot more with Judeo-Christian roots than many choose to admit), but more that in a literary sense, these books permeate our culture. Up until a century or so ago, almost everyone in the UK was familiar with these texts, they referred to them in novels, essays and poems. These books structured their lives and even when they chose to reject them, it was from the position of a society that accepted them, often unthinkingly.
A new translation of books that are so familiar both to me as an ex-Christian, and to our society as a formerly religious one is an interesting sell, therefore. What could a new translator bring? Hart has chosen to write a translation that captures the strange, clunky and often ambiguous Greek. Most translations choose to iron out strange repetitions, odd phrasing, a poorly written sentence, or even a line that is entirely open to question, making into the books that, whether we’ve read them or not, reverberate throughout western culture. Hart’s translation avoids that polishing and retouching. To take an example, most translations of the New Testament translate ‘angelos’ as ‘angels’, but in the Greek, although it came to mean angels, at the time of the Bible it also had the meaning of ‘messenger’. Through translating each example of ‘angelos’ as ‘angels’, translators have created theology, rather than just replicating the holy text. Hart mostly chooses ‘messenger’ other than when the meaning ‘angel’ is unambiguous.
This theology through translation happens more than some would choose to admit. A footnote in 1 Corinthians points out that a verse saying that women should remain silent in church is quite clearly not part of the surrounding argument Paul is making. The verse itself is found in different places in various early versions of the text, and appears to be written in a different style than those surrounding it. Added to this Paul is quite clear that women do speak in church and refers to a women as an ‘apostle’ (another verse which has been translated and interpreted in order to remove its most obvious suggestion - that Paul was fine with women leading worship).
These sorts of diversions can be extremely interesting for an outsider looking at the arguments within the church, many of which both sides can use scriptural authority to support their position. Especially when some of this seeming authority comes from a subsequent translator, not the text itself.
Outside the translation itself, reading the New Testament is an odd experience. The synoptic gospels are recognisable enough to anyone who’s been to church or had a few RE lessons at school. Although, when you read Matthew, Mark and Luke as separate books, you realise that the story you know is actually a conglomeration of multiple stories, not one, single accepted work. In the nativity, for example, the Kings (Magi, magician is probably a better term) and the shepherds appear in two different gospels, never together. Mark doesn’t even tell about Jesus’s childhood at all, and finishes the story with the empty tomb.
Things immediately get weird with the book of John. Far from the preacher of the synoptics, the Jesus of John is well aware of his future crucifixion, and is a mystic, gnomic character. The opening of ‘In the beginning was the logos’ (often translated as ‘word’, but logos means a lot more than just ‘word’, having meanings of ‘ground’, ‘plea’, ‘opinion’, ‘expectation’, ‘word’, ‘speech’, ‘account’, ‘reason’, ‘proportion’, ‘discourse’ - it’s for this reason that Hart chooses not to translate it at all) is a strange introduction to a book about the life of Jesus. It’s mystical and philosophical in a way that some sects adopted, but many brushed under the carpet, focusing much more closely on the synoptics.
Following this are the Acts of the Apostles (actually the second half of the book of Luke, who wrote a considerable proportion of the New Testament), letters, first those of Paul, some attributed to Paul, some unattributed, a few from John (not the previous John), then the Revelation of John (not that John, or the other John). But almost all of it is quite strange to a modern audience. Paul is somewhat more hung up on fornication than I’d remembered, but otherwise relatively sensible. More than anything he’s just overflowing with enthusiasm about this man who he’d never met, and whose followers he had, until recently, been persecuting. This glimpse into a small, insignificant sect is, from an outsider’s perspective, fascinating. They weren’t to know they were founding a religion that would take over 2/3s of the world and would still be in existence two millennia later. Indeed, most of them thought that Jesus’s return was imminent. Jesus said quite clearly it was going to happen within their lifetime. The books, to a degree, struggle with explaining this disparity.
All this said, I’m not sure I’d recommend reading it unless it’s something that particularly interests you. Even for the religious, the complete New Testament end to end is a bit of a slog, regularly repetitious, obscure, or just dull, albeit smattered with recognisable moments of beauty and clarity. Hart does extract something from this text that felt new to me though. Like an art restorer, he cleans off the years of additional grime and repainting that’s been added by translators through the years and reveals a series of books that are more obvious those of the tiny beginnings of a cult in a semi-literate society extremely different from our own. They are something alien, but nevertheless recognisably foundational for our culture, and that’s an intriguing combination.
The main answer is that religion in all forms continues to fascinate me. The mysteries of Christianity perhaps more than most due to their familiarity. Secondarily, though, these books are the ones on which Western civilisation was founded. I don’t mean anything like the contention that our morality is entirely Christian (it’s not, although there’s a lot more with Judeo-Christian roots than many choose to admit), but more that in a literary sense, these books permeate our culture. Up until a century or so ago, almost everyone in the UK was familiar with these texts, they referred to them in novels, essays and poems. These books structured their lives and even when they chose to reject them, it was from the position of a society that accepted them, often unthinkingly.
A new translation of books that are so familiar both to me as an ex-Christian, and to our society as a formerly religious one is an interesting sell, therefore. What could a new translator bring? Hart has chosen to write a translation that captures the strange, clunky and often ambiguous Greek. Most translations choose to iron out strange repetitions, odd phrasing, a poorly written sentence, or even a line that is entirely open to question, making into the books that, whether we’ve read them or not, reverberate throughout western culture. Hart’s translation avoids that polishing and retouching. To take an example, most translations of the New Testament translate ‘angelos’ as ‘angels’, but in the Greek, although it came to mean angels, at the time of the Bible it also had the meaning of ‘messenger’. Through translating each example of ‘angelos’ as ‘angels’, translators have created theology, rather than just replicating the holy text. Hart mostly chooses ‘messenger’ other than when the meaning ‘angel’ is unambiguous.
This theology through translation happens more than some would choose to admit. A footnote in 1 Corinthians points out that a verse saying that women should remain silent in church is quite clearly not part of the surrounding argument Paul is making. The verse itself is found in different places in various early versions of the text, and appears to be written in a different style than those surrounding it. Added to this Paul is quite clear that women do speak in church and refers to a women as an ‘apostle’ (another verse which has been translated and interpreted in order to remove its most obvious suggestion - that Paul was fine with women leading worship).
These sorts of diversions can be extremely interesting for an outsider looking at the arguments within the church, many of which both sides can use scriptural authority to support their position. Especially when some of this seeming authority comes from a subsequent translator, not the text itself.
Outside the translation itself, reading the New Testament is an odd experience. The synoptic gospels are recognisable enough to anyone who’s been to church or had a few RE lessons at school. Although, when you read Matthew, Mark and Luke as separate books, you realise that the story you know is actually a conglomeration of multiple stories, not one, single accepted work. In the nativity, for example, the Kings (Magi, magician is probably a better term) and the shepherds appear in two different gospels, never together. Mark doesn’t even tell about Jesus’s childhood at all, and finishes the story with the empty tomb.
Things immediately get weird with the book of John. Far from the preacher of the synoptics, the Jesus of John is well aware of his future crucifixion, and is a mystic, gnomic character. The opening of ‘In the beginning was the logos’ (often translated as ‘word’, but logos means a lot more than just ‘word’, having meanings of ‘ground’, ‘plea’, ‘opinion’, ‘expectation’, ‘word’, ‘speech’, ‘account’, ‘reason’, ‘proportion’, ‘discourse’ - it’s for this reason that Hart chooses not to translate it at all) is a strange introduction to a book about the life of Jesus. It’s mystical and philosophical in a way that some sects adopted, but many brushed under the carpet, focusing much more closely on the synoptics.
Following this are the Acts of the Apostles (actually the second half of the book of Luke, who wrote a considerable proportion of the New Testament), letters, first those of Paul, some attributed to Paul, some unattributed, a few from John (not the previous John), then the Revelation of John (not that John, or the other John). But almost all of it is quite strange to a modern audience. Paul is somewhat more hung up on fornication than I’d remembered, but otherwise relatively sensible. More than anything he’s just overflowing with enthusiasm about this man who he’d never met, and whose followers he had, until recently, been persecuting. This glimpse into a small, insignificant sect is, from an outsider’s perspective, fascinating. They weren’t to know they were founding a religion that would take over 2/3s of the world and would still be in existence two millennia later. Indeed, most of them thought that Jesus’s return was imminent. Jesus said quite clearly it was going to happen within their lifetime. The books, to a degree, struggle with explaining this disparity.
All this said, I’m not sure I’d recommend reading it unless it’s something that particularly interests you. Even for the religious, the complete New Testament end to end is a bit of a slog, regularly repetitious, obscure, or just dull, albeit smattered with recognisable moments of beauty and clarity. Hart does extract something from this text that felt new to me though. Like an art restorer, he cleans off the years of additional grime and repainting that’s been added by translators through the years and reveals a series of books that are more obvious those of the tiny beginnings of a cult in a semi-literate society extremely different from our own. They are something alien, but nevertheless recognisably foundational for our culture, and that’s an intriguing combination.
February 1, 2020
I think this is an essential, useful translation. The poetry and power of the language isn't quite as strong, however, but that wasn't the author's intent, so that's alright. There are particularly interesting treatments of certain theological concepts that almost certainly have been (mis)interpreted throughout the last 2000 years due to poor understandings of Greek language. I was left with an impression of the New Testament as having a much more explicit assertion of a worldview filled with supernatural powers (not quite Hellenistic paganism, not quite pantheism) that could and did influence human affairs on earth and throughout the kosmos, which could be bound and loosed according to the power of God and God's Son.
Good stuff, but I'm also looking forward to reading the text again with more lyrical sensibility. This was useful, but not particularly "inspiring".
Good stuff, but I'm also looking forward to reading the text again with more lyrical sensibility. This was useful, but not particularly "inspiring".
June 15, 2018
A new translation from the original Greek by David Bentley Hart bring some stark, startling new angles to some very familiar objects, rendering them (to borrow from the warning on a rear view mirror) far weirder than they may appear. A close read of this New Testament cover to cover will serve to show the attentive reader that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for anyone to enter the Kingdom of Heaven but for a "changed heart" and the grace of God. Hart's very scholarly linguistic footnotes illuminate a great deal as well. Altogether, for students of religion and people of faith alike, I highly recommend giving this a close read.
December 11, 2021
A really great translation that gave me a new perspective on much of the New Testament, particularly how it would have been read and understood in antiquity. While Hart probably has his biases, he does a good job of disconnecting the text from the biases most western readers grow up with. I also love that he is very willing to say, “We don’t really know what this word/passage means,” a bold but really humble stance toward scripture that many readers and teachers of the Bible would do well to adopt. From a practical standpoint, I love that it is laid out like a normal book and does not have any of the chapter titles that are in translations like the NIV and ESV.
Read
April 10, 2020Read this through Lent this year, and I liked it. Can’t speak to translation questions, really, but I do have a sense after reading this and some of Alter’s Hebrew Bible that one has to be a very particular type of person to publish a single-author translation of any part of the Bible, and I’ve enjoyed the strong (editorial?) voices in the footnotes of these translations.
The translation of Mark was stunning in its bumpiness and sense of urgency, and I think I might teach an excerpt from it next week...
Thanks for this great labor, DBH.
The translation of Mark was stunning in its bumpiness and sense of urgency, and I think I might teach an excerpt from it next week...
Thanks for this great labor, DBH.
May 15, 2020
As a general principle, if one cannot read sacred texts in the original language, one should read multiple translations. Hart's effort is a worthy one to add to your list of NT translations to read and study from. In his introduction, Hart emphasizes that his translation aims for authentic, natural diction and register choices. Stylistically it certainly feels different than the NRSV, for example, but at the end of the day I'm not sure the difference is as revolutionary as advertised. The translation makes the text approachable and, particularly in the four gospels, bestows a healthy momentum on the narrative. That is merit enough, in my view.
January 6, 2023
Delightful and arresting. Since I can’t read the NT in the original Koine Greek, I have no idea if this translation is really as literal as Hart claims. But I like how reading it asks us to check our assumptions and traditions about the NT text. I only wish it had more notes and other supplementary material.
August 28, 2023
Hart provides revealing descriptions of the challenges involved with translating such ancient texts. I found his version compelling and enjoyed the numerous anecdotes about how different sections came to their (mis-)interpretations.
December 29, 2020
Read plenty to give a review (will finish sometime in 2021, likely): this is one of the most radical translations I've ever read and I've read quite a few. This version does for us something like what the Vulgate did for the original "vulgar" listeners — it shakes up our assumptions about what's what and gives, in some cases, a rather crass translation.
I found myself often laughing aloud at what I considered, until this translation, rather bland passages.
I found myself often laughing aloud at what I considered, until this translation, rather bland passages.
December 7, 2019
Reading David Bentley Hart feels like reading G.K. Chesterton, in which many things are said that are nice, precise, and bombastic (with occasional bouts of superciliousness), but one may feel as if much is ultimately not said. Hart is not a disciplined writer and certainly could use some better editorial interrogation (I can imagine the editor scribbling question marks over portions of his writings and protesting, "Yes, but wth do you mean?!?"). After listening to various lectures of his on Youtube, I can safely say that his writing is a bit clearer and more concise than his lectures, but even this is perhaps too gracious, rather like rating different opacities of the color white.
Enter in then Hart's "The New Testament: A Translation," which, though bookended by some lengthy explanatory (and sometimes pleading) editorials which seek to frame and contextualize his translation, is a surprisingly light, unencumbered placing of the Greek text into imminently readable English. Committee translations like the NRSV and NIV (which Hart has not nice things to say about) rely on group consensus and textual tradition to give its end product consistency and clarity. Often the end product loses the unique voice of each respective text and flattens out passages to a sort of statistical "mean" that does not quite satisfy everyone on the editorial board but perhaps passed in committee and therefore stood as the final form of the translation. Hart's singular translation is both very much like a New Testament you have read before and quite unlike as well, precisely because he has allowed for nuance in his word choices, allowing that there is often no one standard English word that can correspond to the Greek one(s) that stands behind it. Hart lets the vagaries and textual difficulties of the Greek text stand in how he translates into English, or as he says, if the author was bad at writing Greek, then his English text will be bad as well.
This introduces a freshness and uniqueness to the individual books of the New Testament. In this translation, the Gospel of Mark feels really hurried, the Gospel of John somewhat wooden (Jesus just can't keep going on and on about his father), the letter to the Romans quite ersatz in its logical arguments, and the letter to the Hebrews quite beautiful since it is the highest level of Greek writing in the New Testament. The value of this translation is that it tries to showcase the New Testament in all of its brilliance, stupidity, and variety, and for that it should be applauded. From the care taken in the translation itself, to the abundance of critical footnotes, to the excellent (and worth the price of the volume) introduction to the translation, this feels like a work of love and care from a writer who often needlessly spends words and paragraphs and chapters saying very little if nothing at all.
I am sure Hart would protest this last comment by being harshly dismissive and wiggishly shaking his head in opprobrium for the lack of understanding such a critique would surely be generated from, but that is how I have grown to view Hart. Here at least is a book that restrains Hart's worst tendencies and brings something quite beautiful out of the enormous amount of work this must have taken him to do. In this way, Hart is like "every scribe who has been made a disciple to the Kingdom of the heavens . . . like a man who is master of a house, who brings forth things new and old from his treasury."
Enter in then Hart's "The New Testament: A Translation," which, though bookended by some lengthy explanatory (and sometimes pleading) editorials which seek to frame and contextualize his translation, is a surprisingly light, unencumbered placing of the Greek text into imminently readable English. Committee translations like the NRSV and NIV (which Hart has not nice things to say about) rely on group consensus and textual tradition to give its end product consistency and clarity. Often the end product loses the unique voice of each respective text and flattens out passages to a sort of statistical "mean" that does not quite satisfy everyone on the editorial board but perhaps passed in committee and therefore stood as the final form of the translation. Hart's singular translation is both very much like a New Testament you have read before and quite unlike as well, precisely because he has allowed for nuance in his word choices, allowing that there is often no one standard English word that can correspond to the Greek one(s) that stands behind it. Hart lets the vagaries and textual difficulties of the Greek text stand in how he translates into English, or as he says, if the author was bad at writing Greek, then his English text will be bad as well.
This introduces a freshness and uniqueness to the individual books of the New Testament. In this translation, the Gospel of Mark feels really hurried, the Gospel of John somewhat wooden (Jesus just can't keep going on and on about his father), the letter to the Romans quite ersatz in its logical arguments, and the letter to the Hebrews quite beautiful since it is the highest level of Greek writing in the New Testament. The value of this translation is that it tries to showcase the New Testament in all of its brilliance, stupidity, and variety, and for that it should be applauded. From the care taken in the translation itself, to the abundance of critical footnotes, to the excellent (and worth the price of the volume) introduction to the translation, this feels like a work of love and care from a writer who often needlessly spends words and paragraphs and chapters saying very little if nothing at all.
I am sure Hart would protest this last comment by being harshly dismissive and wiggishly shaking his head in opprobrium for the lack of understanding such a critique would surely be generated from, but that is how I have grown to view Hart. Here at least is a book that restrains Hart's worst tendencies and brings something quite beautiful out of the enormous amount of work this must have taken him to do. In this way, Hart is like "every scribe who has been made a disciple to the Kingdom of the heavens . . . like a man who is master of a house, who brings forth things new and old from his treasury."
February 14, 2022
The Veil of Translation
As modern readers of the New Testament, we must acknowledge that there are some irreconcilable differences between the language we read and the language in which the New Testament is written. There is a kind veil between the words named translation. To determine whether or not the veil brings clarity to the original text or obscurity, we are indebted to the meticulous labor of translators. It is the translator who must decide whether to choose words that are more precise or more readable; to translate word by word or idea by idea. The veil must exist between the original text and the translated text is one fashioned by the translator himself.
In David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament, his aim not to provide readability nor emphasize particular doctrines and dogmas, but rather to "make the original text visible through as thin a layer of translation as possible." Whether or not he accomplished what he set out to do in creating a wholly transparent and unbiased translation is debatable, but many of these choices succeed in giving us a sense of the strangeness and uniqueness of this collection of ancient documents. When we anticipate the words to say the same thing we have heard many times, they say something else- not something entirely new, but stated in a new way.
The Good Tidings
Hart's translation manages to capture the urgency with which the New Testament was actually written. One will notice in the first few chapters of the gospel that the narrative switches between past tense and present tense, almost without cause. Matthew 3:13 reads "Then Jesus arrives at the Jordan, coming from Galilee to John to be baptized by him." (Present tense) and only a few sentences later "Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tried by the Slanderer." (Past tense) The translation, while awkward to read at times, does give the desired effect of the urgency and lasting importance of Christ's actions, most emphatically in Mark's account of the crucifixion, reading simply, "They crucify him."
Hart's decision against using words that have a presupposed theological connotation was another triumph of the text. Instead of the "repent" he uses "change your heart" or "change your mind." Instead of "predestination" he chose the very literal translation "marked out in advance". When we encounter these phrases, it is possible to leave behind the theology we have packed into these terms and appreciate moreso the context from which those terms arose.
Even more peculiar to our ears is what he decided not to translate at all, such as the Greek words Logos and cosmos. Two situations from the book of John stand out. He renders the prologue as:
In the origin there was the Logos, and the Logos was present with God, and the Logos was god.
And the famous John 3:16 is given as:
For God so loved the cosmos as to give the Son, the only one, so that everyone having faith in him might not perish but have the life of the Age.
Leaving these two words untranslated was a brilliant and bold decision on Hart's part for two reasons. First, he is assuming that the reader knows something of what the author meant by these words. In the first case, the Logos, representing not simply "the Word of God" but the creative cause, reason and expression of God to the world as they relate to the metaphysics of early Judean and Greek philosophy. Secondly, it allows the text to maintain a unity in concept of these terms, even when their uses may vary. Consider that St Paul uses the term "cosmos" when speaking of the cosmic scope of Christ's redemptive work, as does St Peter to denote the dichotomy between the spirit and cosmos. Whether or not the concepts are distinct is not made clear in Hart's translation- the same word is used regardless, giving the reader the final say.
The last unique feature of this translation is that Hart allowed the voices of the individual writers of the New Testament to remain distinct. St John writes with simple, laconic phrases. St Paul with energetic run-on sentences to preach the good tidings. In fact, the Pauline corpus in particular blooms in Hart's treatment. The many letters have distinctions in subject while maintaining the same stream-of-thought style dictated in long, winding sentences. With all the grandeur of Romans, the mysticism of Second Corinthians, the affection of Philippians- each somehow manage to remain in stark Pauline style, all ultimately being written with the same underlying tone: urgency. It is apparent that Paul felt that that the gospel- translated here as "good tidings"- needed to be preached to all with an immediacy that is palpable.
The Translator's Notes
The translation has some downfalls, namely in its preface, footnotes and postscript. Scattered throughout Hart's notes are references to his fringe position on universalism. Particularly on the notes for two words: aiōnios and gehenna. He translates aiōnios as "the Age" instead of "eternal" and gehenna is translated "Vale of Hinnom" (in Christ's day, this is reference to a location outside the city in which refuse was disposed of and burned) neither of which are intrinsically poor translations. Hart insists that with these translations it ought to be clear that the Vale of Hinnom is a place in which individuals spend a non-descript period of time in "salvation by fire" which will then come to an end and all will be restored to God. While I take no issue that Hart is convinced by this perspective, it seems a stretch to claim that the meaning is inherent in the words themselves. Christ's references to "the Age" and "Vale of Hinnom" are both metaphorical so we still must determine where the reality behind these words lie. In fact, even his choice of translation lends itself to an understanding that this place and time transcend the dimensions we know as locations and periods of time and refer to something beyond our experience, Hart admits such possibility as well. Hart's tendency toward subversion, even of the church at times, is one that betrays his own stated goal of a translator with unbiased resolve. We cannot fault a writer for saying what he believes; but we should take note when this is done under the banner of mere objectivity.
Lastly, Hart seems to indicate that the cause of the prevalence of any doctrine of hell is simply that people have misunderstood the greek via the translations they have read. In his preface, he writes that other translations either accidentally or intentionally distort the text as to lose all credibility. While it is not said outrightly, this sentiment gives the impression that unless one reads the greek directly one has not experienced the Word of God in its fullness. An even more disagreeable undertone is that the Scriptures are not to be clearly understood by every man, nor perhaps even the Church, but by the scholars who must parse through words to find definitive meanings to extract and make God visible. To favor scholarly pedigree over prevalent Church tradition is to take up the iconoclasm of the age; that which resents the authority of the Church and does so under the guise of neutrality.
God in Translation
There is a subtle question raised in Hart's translation that is worth asking: is it possible that the God of the Scriptures could be obscured beyond recognition?
In the book, we encounter the same Man- the Anointed One Jesus, the Son of God- in His movements and teachings on earth. He is born, grows into a man, gathers other men and women to follow him, teaching and working miracles for the people. He is often found in the wilderness to pray. He is often found teaching in the synagogue. He is often moved to compassion. He is loved by His disciples. Then he is betrayed by one of His own, whom He doubtless loved. He suffers. He is crucified.
Then, He is raised from the dead.
These are the good tidings.
When we encounter the Word of God, in any translation, the stories themselves are so potent as to overcome any misgivings from the translators. This is not to say that all translations are created equal and that all offer the same clarity of detail, but the historical reality of Christendom inspired by these texts have proved themselves to be understood by those of every tongue, tribe and nation. The words may differ, but the story is the same. And so, as Pilate declares to the people, he likewise declares to us: Behold the Man. And thus we behold Him, in all of His glory and wonder and compassion in the New Testament. He is the Light that shines through the veil of translation to be seen by all, the same Light shines in the darkness and is conquered not.
As modern readers of the New Testament, we must acknowledge that there are some irreconcilable differences between the language we read and the language in which the New Testament is written. There is a kind veil between the words named translation. To determine whether or not the veil brings clarity to the original text or obscurity, we are indebted to the meticulous labor of translators. It is the translator who must decide whether to choose words that are more precise or more readable; to translate word by word or idea by idea. The veil must exist between the original text and the translated text is one fashioned by the translator himself.
In David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament, his aim not to provide readability nor emphasize particular doctrines and dogmas, but rather to "make the original text visible through as thin a layer of translation as possible." Whether or not he accomplished what he set out to do in creating a wholly transparent and unbiased translation is debatable, but many of these choices succeed in giving us a sense of the strangeness and uniqueness of this collection of ancient documents. When we anticipate the words to say the same thing we have heard many times, they say something else- not something entirely new, but stated in a new way.
The Good Tidings
Hart's translation manages to capture the urgency with which the New Testament was actually written. One will notice in the first few chapters of the gospel that the narrative switches between past tense and present tense, almost without cause. Matthew 3:13 reads "Then Jesus arrives at the Jordan, coming from Galilee to John to be baptized by him." (Present tense) and only a few sentences later "Then Jesus was led up into the wilderness by the Spirit to be tried by the Slanderer." (Past tense) The translation, while awkward to read at times, does give the desired effect of the urgency and lasting importance of Christ's actions, most emphatically in Mark's account of the crucifixion, reading simply, "They crucify him."
Hart's decision against using words that have a presupposed theological connotation was another triumph of the text. Instead of the "repent" he uses "change your heart" or "change your mind." Instead of "predestination" he chose the very literal translation "marked out in advance". When we encounter these phrases, it is possible to leave behind the theology we have packed into these terms and appreciate moreso the context from which those terms arose.
Even more peculiar to our ears is what he decided not to translate at all, such as the Greek words Logos and cosmos. Two situations from the book of John stand out. He renders the prologue as:
In the origin there was the Logos, and the Logos was present with God, and the Logos was god.
And the famous John 3:16 is given as:
For God so loved the cosmos as to give the Son, the only one, so that everyone having faith in him might not perish but have the life of the Age.
Leaving these two words untranslated was a brilliant and bold decision on Hart's part for two reasons. First, he is assuming that the reader knows something of what the author meant by these words. In the first case, the Logos, representing not simply "the Word of God" but the creative cause, reason and expression of God to the world as they relate to the metaphysics of early Judean and Greek philosophy. Secondly, it allows the text to maintain a unity in concept of these terms, even when their uses may vary. Consider that St Paul uses the term "cosmos" when speaking of the cosmic scope of Christ's redemptive work, as does St Peter to denote the dichotomy between the spirit and cosmos. Whether or not the concepts are distinct is not made clear in Hart's translation- the same word is used regardless, giving the reader the final say.
The last unique feature of this translation is that Hart allowed the voices of the individual writers of the New Testament to remain distinct. St John writes with simple, laconic phrases. St Paul with energetic run-on sentences to preach the good tidings. In fact, the Pauline corpus in particular blooms in Hart's treatment. The many letters have distinctions in subject while maintaining the same stream-of-thought style dictated in long, winding sentences. With all the grandeur of Romans, the mysticism of Second Corinthians, the affection of Philippians- each somehow manage to remain in stark Pauline style, all ultimately being written with the same underlying tone: urgency. It is apparent that Paul felt that that the gospel- translated here as "good tidings"- needed to be preached to all with an immediacy that is palpable.
The Translator's Notes
The translation has some downfalls, namely in its preface, footnotes and postscript. Scattered throughout Hart's notes are references to his fringe position on universalism. Particularly on the notes for two words: aiōnios and gehenna. He translates aiōnios as "the Age" instead of "eternal" and gehenna is translated "Vale of Hinnom" (in Christ's day, this is reference to a location outside the city in which refuse was disposed of and burned) neither of which are intrinsically poor translations. Hart insists that with these translations it ought to be clear that the Vale of Hinnom is a place in which individuals spend a non-descript period of time in "salvation by fire" which will then come to an end and all will be restored to God. While I take no issue that Hart is convinced by this perspective, it seems a stretch to claim that the meaning is inherent in the words themselves. Christ's references to "the Age" and "Vale of Hinnom" are both metaphorical so we still must determine where the reality behind these words lie. In fact, even his choice of translation lends itself to an understanding that this place and time transcend the dimensions we know as locations and periods of time and refer to something beyond our experience, Hart admits such possibility as well. Hart's tendency toward subversion, even of the church at times, is one that betrays his own stated goal of a translator with unbiased resolve. We cannot fault a writer for saying what he believes; but we should take note when this is done under the banner of mere objectivity.
Lastly, Hart seems to indicate that the cause of the prevalence of any doctrine of hell is simply that people have misunderstood the greek via the translations they have read. In his preface, he writes that other translations either accidentally or intentionally distort the text as to lose all credibility. While it is not said outrightly, this sentiment gives the impression that unless one reads the greek directly one has not experienced the Word of God in its fullness. An even more disagreeable undertone is that the Scriptures are not to be clearly understood by every man, nor perhaps even the Church, but by the scholars who must parse through words to find definitive meanings to extract and make God visible. To favor scholarly pedigree over prevalent Church tradition is to take up the iconoclasm of the age; that which resents the authority of the Church and does so under the guise of neutrality.
God in Translation
There is a subtle question raised in Hart's translation that is worth asking: is it possible that the God of the Scriptures could be obscured beyond recognition?
In the book, we encounter the same Man- the Anointed One Jesus, the Son of God- in His movements and teachings on earth. He is born, grows into a man, gathers other men and women to follow him, teaching and working miracles for the people. He is often found in the wilderness to pray. He is often found teaching in the synagogue. He is often moved to compassion. He is loved by His disciples. Then he is betrayed by one of His own, whom He doubtless loved. He suffers. He is crucified.
Then, He is raised from the dead.
These are the good tidings.
When we encounter the Word of God, in any translation, the stories themselves are so potent as to overcome any misgivings from the translators. This is not to say that all translations are created equal and that all offer the same clarity of detail, but the historical reality of Christendom inspired by these texts have proved themselves to be understood by those of every tongue, tribe and nation. The words may differ, but the story is the same. And so, as Pilate declares to the people, he likewise declares to us: Behold the Man. And thus we behold Him, in all of His glory and wonder and compassion in the New Testament. He is the Light that shines through the veil of translation to be seen by all, the same Light shines in the darkness and is conquered not.
July 16, 2018
Reading the New Testament end-to-end can be a challenge, as your initial enthusiasm is dampened by the relative sameness of the synoptic gospels and some of the more ponderous passages of the epistles, but I have to assume anybody even considering picking this book up has already read the New Testament once.
Hart states that his goal is to be as literal as possible and reveal aspects of the text lost in our harmonized, committee-produced translations (almost all of which are heavily indebted to Tyndale). He also states a goal of being ecumenical and not favoring any particular theology, on the theory that any theology that doesn't stand up to a literal rendering of the text is clearly false (the NIV in particular is notorious for translations that owe more to theological commitments than scholarship). It's hard from my position to say how well he does on the theological part (although his withering commentary on sola fide and predestination leads one to think he really dislikes Augustine and Protestantism and it'd be hard not to have his depth of feeling affect his work at all).
On recovering the distinctive voice of the original New Testament authors, I think Hart is more successful. I am generally hostile to overly-literal translations, but in the case of the Bible so many of its original-language idioms have made their way into our language that the typical issue of unremarkable sentences becoming bizarre is not there. There are two things I felt notable: the gospels do take on a more distinctive voice in Hart's rendering. Additionally, we get a taste of the rustic nature of the gospel texts Augustine constantly refers to in his Confessions (Augustine claims he was, as a young man, dismissive of the gospels because they were so rustic, but when he became older realized that their simple writing belied deeper truths being presented to the masses). Some of the translations can be thought-provoking -- rendering rendering "Jesus Christ" as "Jesus the Anointed" or "the church" as "the assembly" gives us a different feel for the text and how it must have sounded to someone who hadn't spent their entire lives familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity.
I think one flaw I'd say the text has is the number of times Hart throws his hands up and goes transliterated Greek words. It may be that "Word" does a poor job capturing the various meanings of "Logos," but 1) Word has been a term of art for so long in Christianity that we kind of know that 2) unless you actually speak Greek you probably are just going to know that "logos" is Greek for "word" and mentally substitute the other word.
Such nitpicks aside, this book gives a new perspective on the New Testament and is worth a look.
Hart states that his goal is to be as literal as possible and reveal aspects of the text lost in our harmonized, committee-produced translations (almost all of which are heavily indebted to Tyndale). He also states a goal of being ecumenical and not favoring any particular theology, on the theory that any theology that doesn't stand up to a literal rendering of the text is clearly false (the NIV in particular is notorious for translations that owe more to theological commitments than scholarship). It's hard from my position to say how well he does on the theological part (although his withering commentary on sola fide and predestination leads one to think he really dislikes Augustine and Protestantism and it'd be hard not to have his depth of feeling affect his work at all).
On recovering the distinctive voice of the original New Testament authors, I think Hart is more successful. I am generally hostile to overly-literal translations, but in the case of the Bible so many of its original-language idioms have made their way into our language that the typical issue of unremarkable sentences becoming bizarre is not there. There are two things I felt notable: the gospels do take on a more distinctive voice in Hart's rendering. Additionally, we get a taste of the rustic nature of the gospel texts Augustine constantly refers to in his Confessions (Augustine claims he was, as a young man, dismissive of the gospels because they were so rustic, but when he became older realized that their simple writing belied deeper truths being presented to the masses). Some of the translations can be thought-provoking -- rendering rendering "Jesus Christ" as "Jesus the Anointed" or "the church" as "the assembly" gives us a different feel for the text and how it must have sounded to someone who hadn't spent their entire lives familiar with the basic tenets of Christianity.
I think one flaw I'd say the text has is the number of times Hart throws his hands up and goes transliterated Greek words. It may be that "Word" does a poor job capturing the various meanings of "Logos," but 1) Word has been a term of art for so long in Christianity that we kind of know that 2) unless you actually speak Greek you probably are just going to know that "logos" is Greek for "word" and mentally substitute the other word.
Such nitpicks aside, this book gives a new perspective on the New Testament and is worth a look.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews