The New Testament, Second Edition - Hardcover

by Michael Straus (Author)

My goal in this translation has been to bring some fresh turns of phrase to the New Testament's varied texts, adapting linguistic forms as a given genre or writer's style might suggest. My aim is not to supplant prior translations so much as to shed light on obscure passages; capture the humanity of Jesus' personality as presented in the Gospels; intelligibly convey doctrine and experience as related in Acts and the Epistles; and reflect the atemporal nature of the Book of Revelation. The translation seeks to be at once enjoyable, novelistic and at times poetic, avoiding the overly-literal, freely adopting the colloquial, and taking grammatical license where the writer employed imagery not subject to standard linguistic limitations. This Second Edition largely tracks the prior edition, but also includes a distinctively new version of the Letter to the Colossians as an example of a canonical-hermeneutical approach to translation, one that better reflects the historicity of under-standing in seeking to capture the interrelating effects of time and tradition on textual expression. It thus takes fuller account of intrascriptural language and imagery; hymnic aspects of the text; nomina sacra found in early manuscripts; the text's effective history in faith formulae; and the trajectory of its lengthy translation-tradition. The translation as a whole approaches Scripture as the viva vox evangelii, with ongoing linguistic presence through credal, liturgical, sermonic and other forms of expression.

Author Biography

Michael Straus holds degrees in classical languages, law, and theology. He has previously published translations from Greek and Spanish.

Anna Pipes is an artist based in New York.