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The New Testament for everyoneIdiosyncratic / inconsistentTHE NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE Like Weymouth’s and J.B. Phillips’s, this English version is by a single person and consists of the New Testament (NT) only. It is the work of the well-known Anglican cleric and academic, who in popular publications goes by the name Tom rather than N.T. (Nicholas Thomas, not New Testament!) Wright. Wright is not apologetic for producing yet another translation arguing that as Jesus taught us to pray ‘for our bread for each day’, so ‘we can never simply live… on the interpretations and translations of previous generations’ (p.xv). We learn from previous attempts, but he maintains we need to do ‘fresh work’ for ourselves to help open up new possibilities and he hopes his new version will help refresh the faith of Christians and reinvigorate them ‘to take forward God’s mission in tomorrow’s world.’(p.xviii). He insists that this is a translation and not a paraphrase and, strictly speaking, that is so, although in trying to use gender-neutral language he is sometimes forced into employing ‘they’ rather than ‘he’ or ‘she’. The version is not exactly new, for it consists in bringing together the individual translations he made from his popular commentaries in the NT guides series ‘For Everyone’. QuirkyOne of Wright’s quirky customs, which he does not explain in the preface, is his use of lower case letters when referring to members of the Trinity: ‘father, son, holy spirit’ (e.g. Matthew 28.19). Yet, in Luke 1.35, he has a capital ‘S’ for God’s ‘Son’. Another case is where, in reference to the Hebrew Scriptures, a capital ‘P’ is used for the ‘Psalms’ but not for ‘law’ and ‘prophets’ (Matthew 5.17;7.12; Luke 24.44). The most controversial element about his translation is his desire to see his understanding of justification become more acceptable in the Christian world. A clear reference to the ‘great exchange’ associated with justification is lost in his very forced rendering of 2 Corinthians 5.21. He argues for translating the one Greek word ‘righteousness’ with a variety of English words ‘to bring out the different flavour’ which it seems to carry from passage to passage. But it is difficult to understand why Wright has rung the changes so many times in Romans, whereas in Galatians he translates the ‘righteousness/justification’ word family in a much more traditional way. A person reading the latter book would not immediately appreciate that the same language was being used in Romans, where Wright presents the reader with ‘covenant justice’, ‘covenant faithfulness’ and ‘covenant membership’. Again, ‘faith of Jesus Christ’ in the sense of ‘faith in Jesus Christ’ becomes in his ‘fresh’ presentation the ‘faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah’ (Romans 3.22; Galatians 2.16) or ‘Messiah’s faithfulness’ (Philippians 3.9). Given that this version is full of Wright’s own idiosyncratic views that are damaging to the evangelical faith he claims to uphold, the translation cannot be recommended for general use. This is a pity because there are many places where he is able to make the original text come alive in a helpful way. Take up his advice when using it and read it alongside other translations. Philip H. Eveson, © Evangelicals Now - January 2012 |