Today I went through David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament:
The New Testament: A Translation (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2017)
While one is
usually wary of translations of the entire NT (and/or OT) by a single person,
this is actually a very good translation, and the footnotes provided are very
well done, too. Such holds up even in "small" places; for instance,
Hart correctly translates the verb μετατιθημι in Heb
7:12 as "to transpose" and not "to change":
For, when the priesthood has been transposed,
there is also of necessity comes about a transposition of law.
While
commenting on 1 Cor 15:29, he writes on p.348 n. ac:
The presence of Christians receiving baptism
on behalf of other persons who died unbaptized was evidently a common enough
practice in the apostolic church that Paul can use it as a support for his
argument without qualification. and the form of the Greek (ὑπὲρ τῶν νεκρῶν [hyper tōn
nekrōn]) leaves no doubt that it is to just such a posthumous proxy baptism
that he is referring.
He also does
a stellar job at translating words from the δικαι-word group correctly, and not
in light of the purely forensic nature of Protestant translations (which are
informed by theological bias). This comes out explicitly in many texts,
including Jas
2:18-26 where δικαιοω is rendered "made righteous" (alt.
"proved righteous" and not merely "declared righteous"):
Yet someone will say, "You have faith
and I have works." You show me your faith without the works, and I will
show you faith by my works. You have faith that God is one? You are doing well.
Even the daemonic beings have that faith, and they tremble. But are you willing
to recognize, O you inane man, that faith without works yields nothing? Was not
our father Abraham made righteous by works, offering up his own son Isaac on
the sacrificial altar? You see that faith cooperated with his works, and by he
works the faith was brought to completion. And the scripture was fulfilled:
"And Abraham had faith in God, and it was accounted to righteousness on
his part," and he was called a friend of God. You see that a human being
is made righteous by works, and not by faith alone. And, likewise, was not
Rahab the prostitute also made righteous by works, sheltering the messengers
and sending them forth by a different path? For just as the body without spirit
is dead, so also faith without works is dead.
If one is looking for a good translation of the New Testament, Hart's comes highly recommended.
