Publishers Weekly
★ 08/14/2017
Patristics scholar Hart (Atheist Delusions) explains in a lengthy introduction his reasons for what he calls a “reconstructive” translation of the New Testament: “to help awaken readers to mysteries and uncertainties and surprises” that he has found. The resulting text is indeed different; gone are many familiar terms, such as Messiah and devil. Hart also occasionally switches to present tense in gospel narratives, following the original Greek. From a literary point of view, the text is graceless, as the translator almost cheerfully admits. From the point of view of biblical studies, Hart has produced a deconstructive challenge to much received theological and hermeneutical wisdom, particularly about Paul’s letters; on that topic Hart joins a large and lively scholarly conversation. Another distinctive aspect of this translation is Hart’s insistence that scriptural condemnation of wealth is a consistent theme meant to be taken seriously. This necessary, brilliantly presented translation reads like taking a biblical studies class with a provocative professor. (Oct.)
From the Publisher
Praise for the First Edition: “In [David Bentley Hart’s] hands, the words of Jesus and his followers produce not shivers of mere approximation, but rather shivers of awe at the clarity, poignancy, and simplicity of this complex treatise. . . . We are delivered a text pulsing with contemporary urgency.”—Jennifer Kurdyla, America “Fresh translations of familiar texts are useful because they make us reexamine what we thought we knew. Hart has certainly made me think more deeply about the centrality of the world’s end to the entirety of the New Testament. . . . Hart tells us that he wanted to make this book wild, repellent, ‘just a bit indecent,’ and not what we expected. He succeeds.”—Garry Wills, New York Review of Books “The life of Jesus in the New Testament reaches us via four voices, four accounts that overlap, diverge, corroborate, and destabilize one another. . . . By putting us closer to these differences, to the distinctive sound of each voice. . . . Hart is doing something important.”—James Parker, Atlantic “Hart is brilliant. . . . All theologians, and anyone interested in the New Testament as at least a quasi-classical document, will be in his debt. . . . Hart’s translation has the great virtue of reminding us that this text is not safe: if we think it is familiar, we are in error.”—Victor Lee Austin, New Criterion “This translation is a remarkable feat. Anyone, however familiar with the texts, reading it straight through is bound to have gained a clean, complex and compelling impression of the springtime of the Church, and the energy, urgency and sense of wonder with which the evangelists, Paul and the author of the letter to the Hebrews wrote of the extraordinary person and events, and the meaning of both, that were their news for the world.”—Lucy Beckett, Times Literary Supplement “It will be a long time before I put [Hart’s translation] back on my shelf. It in particular points up the many deficiencies of the NIV and the ESV.”—A. N. Wilson, New Statesman “The greatest achievement of Hart’s translation is to restore the urgency of the original. . . . Compelling, and it is beautiful.”—James Mumford, Standpoint “Hart sets out to unsettle, startle and disturb. In this strange, disconcerting, radical version of a strange, disconcerting manifesto of profoundly radical values, his aim is scintillatingly and sometimes unnervingly achieved.”—Salley Vickers, Literary Review “[Hart] has risen to the challenge with a bold determination.”—Dr. John Court, Church Times “Disarmingly beautiful in its own way. . . . [Hart] does nothing less than focus our attention on the urgency of what the Greek text is telling us, and by doing so focuses our attention on—as Rowan Williams puts it on the dust-jacket—‘what was and is uncomfortably new about the New Testament’.”—Stephen Miller, Theology “This necessary, brilliantly presented translation reads like taking a biblical studies class with a provocative professor.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Hart has without question done a great service for readers of the New Testament. . . . That Hart deeply understands his ancient Greek is also without question. This understanding establishes his ability to rework well-traveled scripture not to recast, but reclaim its strangeness and alterity.”—Burke Gerstenschlager and Ed Simon, Los Angeles Review of Books “We need a Bible not made in our image. So we have Hart to thank—both for giving us a Bible we did not want and for showing us how much we need it.”—Brett Beasley, The Cresset “The book sets out to be provocative and succeeds. . . . [Hart] conveys exceptionally well the urgency of the New Testament. The message itself is of supreme and burning importance, and the authors were in a hurry to get it out, and Hart lets us feel this ‘from the inside.’”—Paul Mankowski, First Things “Readers will experience here a fresh and at times startling reacquaintance with the New Testament text. . . . Equally valuable is Hart’s long and eloquent introduction.”—Donald Senior, CP, Bible Today “Refreshing. . . . A delight to read. . . . Brings a joy to scriptural reading unparalleled by other translations of late. . . . I recommend Hart’s translation of the New Testament to anyone who wishes to see the Scripture in a new light.”—Matthew A. Smith, Princeton Theological Review “Hart emphasizes that the New Testament’s politics and theology spring from what he calls its ‘indiscriminate polyphony.’ . . . Hart’s provocations register as matters of style . . . that make the translation noteworthy as a literary achievement, not simply as a theological or historiographic statement.”—Lucas Kwong, Public Books “This scrupulous, knotty, learned rendering of some of the most familiar texts of our culture makes us see with new clarity just what was and is uncomfortably new about the New Testament.”—Rowan Williams, theologian and poet, Cambridge “In this age of committee-generated translations of the Bible, a fresh and pointedly different translation of the New Testament by a single scholar is a remarkable achievement. Hart’s approach is intentionally provocative, and strong reactions are sure to follow. Let the games begin.”—John P. Meier, author of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus “David Hart’s translation of the New Testament is a theological and ecclesial event of the first magnitude. By providing, for the first time, a literal English translation of the Greek (and demonstrating that the most literal can be the most strikingly beautiful rendering) Hart has shown, after 500 years, that the core of Reformation theology is un-Biblical and that certain currents of Latin theology are dubious or inadequate. This new version, which should become the standard one for scholarly use, also makes it clearer that, while doctrinal liberalism is wishful thinking, credal Christianity only emerged from a plausible but subtle reading of sometimes teasingly ambivalent texts. Hart’s brilliant postscript amounts to a call for a more genuinely Biblical orthodoxy: universalist, synergic, participatory, cosmic, gnostic (in a non-heterodox sense) and communitarian.”—John Milbank, University of Nottingham “In its simplicity and freshness David Hart’s New Testament translation will sound as strange and wondrous to twenty-first-century, English-language speakers as the Greek of the New Testament sounded to first-century speakers of Greek.”—Robert Louis Wilken, author of The First Thousand Years “Hart notes that the heart of this good news . . . focuses much more on the salvation of all than on the condemnation of some. . . . Nothing like reading the New Testament again, without a filter. Thank you, David Bentley Hart!”—Frederico Lourenço, classicist, winner of the Pessoa Prize
John Milbank
"David Hart's translation of the New Testament is a theological and ecclesial event of the first magnitude. By providing, for the first time, a literal English translation of the Greek (and demonstrating that the most literal can be the most strikingly beautiful rendering) Hart has shown, after 500 years, that the core of Reformation theology is un-Biblical and that certain currents of Latin theology are dubious or inadequate. This new version, which should become the standard one for scholarly use, also makes it clearer that, while doctrinal liberalism is wishful thinking, credal Christianity only emerged from a plausible but subtle reading of sometimes teasingly ambivalent texts. Hart's brilliant postscript amounts to a call for a more genuinely Biblical orthodoxy: universalist, synergic, participatory, cosmic, gnostic (in a non-heterodox sense) and communitarian."—John Milbank, University of Nottingham
John P. Meier
“In this age of committee-generated translations of the Bible, a fresh and pointedly different translation of the New Testament by a single scholar is a remarkable achievement. Hart's approach is intentionally provocative, and strong reactions are sure to follow. Let the games begin.”— John P. Meier, author of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus
Rowan Williams
“This scrupulous, knotty, learned rendering of some of the most familiar texts of our culture makes us see with new clarity just what was and is uncomfortably new about the New Testament.”—Rowan Williams, theologian and poet, Cambridge
Robert Louis Wilken
“In its simplicity and freshness David Hart’s New Testament translation will sound as strange and wondrous to twenty-first-century, English-language speakers as the Greek of the New Testament sounded to first-century speakers of Greek.”—Robert Louis Wilken, author of The First Thousand Years
Library Journal
11/01/2017
Hart (fellow, Notre Dame Inst. for Advanced Studies; The Experience of God; Atheist Delusions; The Story of Christianity) produces a one-person translation of the New Testament that attempts to capture the immediacy and nuances of the original Greek. The stated intention is to produce a translation unaffected by later church doctrine. Rather than a committee determining a common denominator, the author's singular voice and decisions come through clearly. For instance, Hart has chosen to render a common Greek phrase in its literal form as "the life of the age" rather than eternal or everlasting life. He also captures the choppiness of the narrative rather than smoothing it out as a literary production. His introduction, footnotes, and postscript reveal some of the thinking behind his language decisions, but the majority of the text remains undeclared owing to space constraints. Readers who are familiar with other translations will find a fresh voice in this version. VERDICT Academic readers, particularly those with some knowledge of Greek, will find this a useful resource, as will readers looking for another source on the Bible beyond the common translations. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.—Ray Arnett, Fremont Area Dist. Lib., MI
