The New Testament, David Bentley Hart
The New Testament, David Bentley Hart
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The New Testament
A Translation

Author: David Bentley Hart

Narrator: Eric Jason Martin

Unabridged: 21 hr 46 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/05/2018

Synopsis

David Bentley Hart undertook this new translation of the New Testament in the spirit of "etsi doctrina non daretur," "as if doctrine is not given." Reproducing the texts' often fragmentary formulations without augmentation or correction, he has produced a pitilessly literal translation, one that captures the texts' impenetrability and unfinished quality while awakening listeners to an uncanniness that often lies hidden beneath doctrinal layers.

The early Christians' sometimes raw, astonished, and halting prose challenges the idea that the New Testament affirms the kind of people we are. Hart reminds us that they were a company of extremists, radical in their rejection of the values and priorities of society not only at its most degenerate, but often at its most reasonable and decent. "To live as the New Testament language requires," he writes, "Christians would have to become strangers and sojourners on the earth, to have here no enduring city, to belong to a Kingdom truly not of this world. And we surely cannot do that, can we?"

About David Bentley Hart

David Bentley Hart is a philosopher and Orthodox theologian whose work encompasses a wide range of subjects and genres. He has taught at the University of Virginia, the University of St. Thomas, Loyola College in Maryland, Providence College, and Saint Louis University. In 2015, he was granted a Templeton Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. Hart has written numerous books, including The Beauty of the Infinite, The New Testament: A Translation, The Devil and Pierre Gernet, Theological Territories, and That All Shall Be Saved.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Scriptor Ignotus on March 15, 2021

With this “pitilessly literal” translation of the New Testament, Hart has sought to render the authentic texture of the Greek manuscripts in English with all their coarseness and obscurity intact. Most modern translations have the effect, intentional or otherwise, of “smoothing over” the Greek prose......more

Goodreads review by Paul on March 21, 2024

An astonishing achievement. Hart completely pares back his usual pretentious verbosity (in the introduction, footnotes . . . and somewhat in the postscript), and somehow makes the New Testament truly new. Just speaking for myself, after reading the NT probably a dozen times in the last two decades,......more

Goodreads review by David on December 05, 2024

First off, I’m not qualified to comment on the Greek-English translation as 95% of the Greek I learned 17 years ago in seminary is long gone. That said, this is a refreshing translation. Hart sought to be as literal as possible, retaining the awkwardness of the Greek. This is seen in the gospels wher......more

Goodreads review by Spencer on March 27, 2018

It's not your grandma's Bible. As Hart explains in his ample prefatory remarks and postscript, his purpose here is not to produce a pristine text refined for liturgical use and shaped by Nicene-Constantinopolitan theology--not because he thinks that theology is deficient or erroneous, but because he......more

Goodreads review by Travis on January 09, 2023

Have yet to work through the entire thing, but since I’m moving back into the OT for a while I thought I might as well log it to say that the sections I did read—the gospels, Romans, Galatians, Hebrews, James, and Revelation—are really something special. Regardless of where you stand on Hart, a thin......more

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