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4.56 AVERAGE
4.56 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
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.
A momentous achievement for DBH, but not always easy to follow. A fascinating translation if not always the most readable. I would have appreciated many more notes.
We don't deserve David Bentley Hart, but I'm glad to have him.
Translation is a challenging exercise, especially translating a work, like the New Testament, which has uncommon vocabulary and stylistic conventions. Translators need to make choices that balance many different concerns: comprehensibility to modern readers, fidelity to the voices of the original authors, overall stylistic constraints, translation choice of tricky words, phrases, and passages, etc.
An additional challenge comes when translating a well analyzed text like the New Testament. Translation choices that may have originally been fairly neutral have gained layers of doctrinal meaning that were not always there in the original text. A similar but not quite identical influence on the translated text is that translators may choose to resolve ambiguity by choosing the option that is most consistent with the doctrinal position they hold. In neither of these cases is the translator intentionally biasing the text. However, the overall effect is that the modern reader comes away with an impression that is notably different than those with the language and context of the original hearers and readers of the text.
No translation can ever reproduce what a New Testament text would mean to the original audience. However, in this translation Hart aims to recapture some of the ambiguity of the original text as well as letting the varying voices of the authors show more clearly. To achieve this, he aimed for a literal translation that does not apply stylistic conventions or attempt to modernize sentence structure or text for easier understanding. When translating difficult terms and phrases, he attempts, as much as possible, to try to capture the meaning (or lack of highly specific meaning) that it would have had for the original reader.
I cannot speak to the linguistic quality of this as a translation since I have no knowledge of ancient languages. However, I can say that the translation meets its overall goal of demonstrating how many of the ideas that seem incontrovertible in common translations have much more nuance or ambiguity when different translation choices are made. Does that mean those translations are wrong and this one is right? Not really (Although it's hard to say this one is or isn't right since it mainly makes interpretation more fuzzy rather than pointing to a different interpretation.) Rather, it points to how important it is to understand how complex the problem of translation is (especially for those who choose to make significant life choices based on a text).
Overall, if you are interested in using multiple translations to try to triangulate the meanings in the New Testament texts, I recommend adding this to your list of tools.
An additional challenge comes when translating a well analyzed text like the New Testament. Translation choices that may have originally been fairly neutral have gained layers of doctrinal meaning that were not always there in the original text. A similar but not quite identical influence on the translated text is that translators may choose to resolve ambiguity by choosing the option that is most consistent with the doctrinal position they hold. In neither of these cases is the translator intentionally biasing the text. However, the overall effect is that the modern reader comes away with an impression that is notably different than those with the language and context of the original hearers and readers of the text.
No translation can ever reproduce what a New Testament text would mean to the original audience. However, in this translation Hart aims to recapture some of the ambiguity of the original text as well as letting the varying voices of the authors show more clearly. To achieve this, he aimed for a literal translation that does not apply stylistic conventions or attempt to modernize sentence structure or text for easier understanding. When translating difficult terms and phrases, he attempts, as much as possible, to try to capture the meaning (or lack of highly specific meaning) that it would have had for the original reader.
I cannot speak to the linguistic quality of this as a translation since I have no knowledge of ancient languages. However, I can say that the translation meets its overall goal of demonstrating how many of the ideas that seem incontrovertible in common translations have much more nuance or ambiguity when different translation choices are made. Does that mean those translations are wrong and this one is right? Not really (Although it's hard to say this one is or isn't right since it mainly makes interpretation more fuzzy rather than pointing to a different interpretation.) Rather, it points to how important it is to understand how complex the problem of translation is (especially for those who choose to make significant life choices based on a text).
Overall, if you are interested in using multiple translations to try to triangulate the meanings in the New Testament texts, I recommend adding this to your list of tools.
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.
Though I am not a practising Christian, I remain fascinated by religions and how they came to be. In particular, I'm very interested in the history of that diverse collection of documents we call the Bible: how those documents were selected, who wrote them, when they were written, how it was decided to include or exclude them, and what those varied authors had to say.
This new translation of the New Testament by David Bentley Hart is truly interesting, because he has attempted what he calls a 'pitilessly literal' translation from the original Greek (you know that all of the New Testament was originally written in Greek, don't you?). In doing this, he says that he has attempted to provide as thin a layer of translation as possible between the modern reader and the original authors of these documents. He carefully documents his treatment of certain words and phrases and explains why he has chosen to translate them in a particular way.
Lest I give you the wrong impression, Hart is a committed Christian, who believes the writings of the Bible were divinely inspired, but that this "must involve an acknowledgement that God speaks through human beings, in all their historical, cultural and personal contingency."
In many cases, though, Hart's literal translation, insisting on focusing on what the actual words of the original Greek say, rather than on what the layers of theological teachings over the centuries demand that it *should* say, demonstrates that much of the latter interpretation is misplaced. For example, there is nothing in the original Greek which supports the concept of original sin, or that of eternal torment in Hell for sinners. Nor was the Apostle Paul the stiff mysogynist some have made him out to be (indeed my respect for Paul has been increased greatly by reading Hart's translation of Paul's letters—you actually begin to get a sense of him as an actual person). There's one passage in one of Paul's letters, a couple of paragraphs condemning women, which Hart demonstrates convincingly is a later, clumsy insertion into Paul's writing, interrupting a logical argument he is setting out about an entirely different issue.
Certainly those Christians who insist that every word of the New Testament is the literal voice of God, but then want to lean on unlikely readings of the text to make it agree with a particular theological stance they hold, will not like Hart's translation. I, though, found it extremely interesting and refreshing.
Hart's foreword, his footnotes about his translation decisions, and his long 'Concluding Scientific Postcript' are worth the price of the book alone.
This new translation of the New Testament by David Bentley Hart is truly interesting, because he has attempted what he calls a 'pitilessly literal' translation from the original Greek (you know that all of the New Testament was originally written in Greek, don't you?). In doing this, he says that he has attempted to provide as thin a layer of translation as possible between the modern reader and the original authors of these documents. He carefully documents his treatment of certain words and phrases and explains why he has chosen to translate them in a particular way.
Lest I give you the wrong impression, Hart is a committed Christian, who believes the writings of the Bible were divinely inspired, but that this "must involve an acknowledgement that God speaks through human beings, in all their historical, cultural and personal contingency."
In many cases, though, Hart's literal translation, insisting on focusing on what the actual words of the original Greek say, rather than on what the layers of theological teachings over the centuries demand that it *should* say, demonstrates that much of the latter interpretation is misplaced. For example, there is nothing in the original Greek which supports the concept of original sin, or that of eternal torment in Hell for sinners. Nor was the Apostle Paul the stiff mysogynist some have made him out to be (indeed my respect for Paul has been increased greatly by reading Hart's translation of Paul's letters—you actually begin to get a sense of him as an actual person). There's one passage in one of Paul's letters, a couple of paragraphs condemning women, which Hart demonstrates convincingly is a later, clumsy insertion into Paul's writing, interrupting a logical argument he is setting out about an entirely different issue.
Certainly those Christians who insist that every word of the New Testament is the literal voice of God, but then want to lean on unlikely readings of the text to make it agree with a particular theological stance they hold, will not like Hart's translation. I, though, found it extremely interesting and refreshing.
Hart's foreword, his footnotes about his translation decisions, and his long 'Concluding Scientific Postcript' are worth the price of the book alone.
I think it provides a fairly transparent window onto the Greek text. But I don't read Greek.
A fresh translation made as if doctrine doesn’t exist, which makes for some fun contrasts. An “almost pitilessly literal” translation that is quite blunt: when Paul’s letters or Revelation are poorly written (he calls the latter “unremittingly atrocious”), Hart translates them as such instead of smoothing them out like most translations do.
In my biblical studies, I enjoy looking at a variety of translations. This translation of the New Testament is incredibly insightful and shifts perspectives on how sentences read in ways that enlighten my understanding of certain scriptures. David Bentley Hart is an ancient Greek scholar and understands the original language and that comes out in how he crafts the scripture. I plan on using this quite widely in my studies in the future.