Most exciting single-author translation of the New Testament

December 14, 2019 9:41 AM

Encountering the Alter Hebrew Bible was very exciting to me. I'm wondering what similar developments have taken place for translations of the New Testament. I know of a few, but all I'm going off of is Amazon reviews, which is obviously a deficient approach. Do any of you have thoughts on which translation(s) I should read?

I have almost no experience with Christianity outside my experiences with evangelical classmates in high school. But I've recently read Simone Weil and have become deeply curious about the New Testament. I loved Robert Alter's approach to the Hebrew Bible, and I'm wondering if there are similarly exciting translations of the New Testament.

I'm also open to secondary resources for new readers encountering the gospels, etc.

posted by baptismal to Religion & Philosophy (5 answers total)

I was thinking of getting David Bentley Hart's New Testament translation for my parents for the holiday.
posted by bradbane at 9:56 AM on December 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

Three Gospels by Reynolds Price. I don't know how well regarded it is by biblical scholars, but it's a beautiful, approachable, and extremely thoughtful book. It's Price's modern translations of Mark and John and then his own retelling of the life of Jesus ("The Honest Account of a Memorable Life"), based on various apocrypha. He describes his approach & sources pretty clearly in the preface. (Relevant: Robert Alter reviewed Three Gospels in the NYT, here.)
posted by miles per flower at 10:07 AM on December 14, 2019 [1 favorite]

On the very, very off-chance that you read French, I have to plug André Chouraqui's majestic translation (both old & new Testaments).
posted by bulgroz at 7:55 PM on December 14, 2019

I like Lamsa's translation because it's directly from the Aramaic rather than by way of the Greeks. He's got an axe to grind about translation, so if you're just looking for something literary you may prefer to skip it.

Wikipedia link
posted by dbx at 6:41 PM on December 15, 2019

Richmond Lattimore did a great English translation of the Four Gospels four decades ago. He was a poet and translator of ancient Greek plays and myths, and treated the New Testament the same way. I learn on Googling that he was a Christian, at least at the end of his life when he was completing this translation. This surprises me; when I read his translation years ago, it struck me as aesthetically but not devoutly committed to the text.
posted by mississippi at 11:19 PM on December 15, 2019