The New Testament
Reason Book was Chosen:
I had this translation suggested by a few different people. I originally had the N.T. Wright translation of the New Testament on my list but switched it for this one.My Thoughts
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.
