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The New Covenant: Commonly Called the New Testament

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Review of Willis Barnstone, The New Covenant.

Willis Barnstone is a poet, and also renowned for his translations of Classical Greek poetry. Now he has tried his hand at translating the New Testament, which he calls The New Covenant, which is an exact translation of its Greek title: Kaine diatheke.
He presents this foundational book of Christianity in a way that does full justice to its deep poetical qualities. Substantial parts of the Old Testament have long been recognised as verse rather than prose, and many translations have taken account of this. Barnstone goes much farther. In his New Covenant, which contains the four Gospels and the Apocalypse, but not the Acts and the Letters, he renders in free verse all the passages purporting to be Jesus's words -- for instance, the Sermon on the Mount. Similarly for the words of John the Baptist, and the whole of the Apocalypse (The Revelation of John). Many readers, like me, will find that the familiar texts appear in a new light.

Barnstone's aim is to create in his English readers the same impression as the original Greek does to the Greek-speaking ones. Most of the many Jews in the cities of Egypt and Asia minor had at that time Greek as their mother tongue.
One essential feature of Barnstone's translation of the New Covenant is to render all names of persons and places in its Hebrew or Aramaic form: Jesus (Greek Iesous) as Jeshua, Jerusalem as Yerushalayim.. He underlines that the New Covenant is a Jewish book. Jesus was of course a Jew, and so were most of the early Christians. They were an integral part of the Jewish community, by now spread over most of the Eastern Mediterranean area. Contrasting Jews and Christians was a propagandist trick of later writers, who were eager to distance themselves from other Jew .Thus they planted the seeds of Christian anti-semitism. I think Barnstone has taken the right decision on this point.
The book also contains a Foreword of some 20 p ages, and an afterword of 120., where Barnstone places his translation in the wider context of Biblical studies. Further, the book has footnotes explaining obscurities and various points of translation. But they are never obtrusive.
In his comments Barnstone avoids polemics, and reveals himself as a well-informed and urbane liberal-minded scholar. He stresses that the gospel narratives find little or no confirmation in historical accounts. Somewhat surprisingly, he goes on to say that Jesus's crucifixion by the Roman authorities must be regarded as an established fact. This is certainly the opinion of the large majority of New Testament scholars. But there is by no means unanimity on this point. However, this is a minor matter.
All in all, Barnstone succeeds extremely well in making his readers approach the New Testament with fresh eyes, shifting attention from points of doctrine and historicity, on to what is common to great religious poetry all over the world: its power to inspire feelings of hope and joy, and at the same time to convey a sense of the mystery of human existence.
This is a superb achievement.

Barnstone, Willis. The New Covenant, commonly called the New Testament. (New York: Riverhead Books, 2002) 225.5'209-DC21 [Barbara Prose]

This is a recent book written about the language of the Gospels in the most beautiful and emotive language of a poet. "Therein lies the ordinary art and the plain great passion of the people in the gospels. That picture of primal nakedness covered by a colorless mean cloth, of hurting bodies that speak with need from a primal poverty, ensures that the gospels, independent of faith, doctrine, commandment, fearful warnings, and metaphysic, will always reach those with eyes to hear and feel the human condition of the spirited body waiting on the earth." (p.6) I believe that Barnstone is a poet first although he is also an author, professor of comparative literature, literary critic, and an award-winning translator. With nine volumes of poetry to his name, Barnstone writes of scripture like a river flowing through your brain and introduces his new translation of The Gospels and the Apocalypse with a passionate call to a reformation of openness which has no end. "A book need not end, nor a heart, nor a spirit roaming in the blur inside. The day and night of life need not end but stay open to vision, maybe the vision of the blind and crippled. So reformation is openness, and carries in its intellectual passion a small r." (8)
Barnstone has three goals in presenting his new translation: to restore the geography and Semitic identity of the characters that it might inspire understanding of the text as narratives about Jews, a rabbi, his family and his followers, who were to be the essential figures of Christianity; to present a text which no longer serves to demonize the Jews; to present a text which can thus become a New Covenant which Jews and Christians alike can read "for its spiritual firmaments and literary marvels." (27) Although he only mentions the following goal tangentially, he also develops ideas about the Bible as an endless fountain of poetry and thus invites those who appreciate literature and poetry to read the Gospels with new eyes. He does this primarily in his preface and introduction of twenty-five pages. As a man who is passionate about the possibilities in translation, he describes the scarlet T of translation in ways which make the reader aware of the consequences of our choice of words and demonstrates how language can open or obscure windows of perception and understanding. An example of several of these goals can be found in his translation of Matthew 2:5-6. In the NRSV we read "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet," is newly translated as, "In Beit Lehem in Yehuda, for so it is written by the prophet Malaci." (23)
If you love language and poetry you will enjoy reading this book. If you are interested in healing the wound between Christian and Jew you will find much to inspire you in this book. If you are intrigued by the art of translation you will be fascinated by this book. The introduction is an artfully composed presentation of Barnstone's reasons and motivations for a new translation. The twelve essays contained in his afterword are provocative, easy and exciting to read. Covering topics such as the Charge of Deicide, Anti-Judaism in the New Covenant, historical bases of Yeshua's life and death, the names of Old and New as used before the word Testament, Satanizing Jews in John and the other Gospels, you will find plenty of food for thought and more than enough words for a healthy massage of the brain, heart and soul.
The bulk of the book of 576 pages is the translation itself. Barnstone states that his method, in the end, is to leave the text alone. Let the problems reveal themselves, the commentaries reveal the struggles of their times, the finite human blunders fade. "Holding dominion in the New Covenant are the beauty of the word, the compassion for the poor and hungry, the blind and the leper, the crippled and the possessed. The wisdom narration explores physical and mental suffering and offers earthly and spiritual hope. Preserved in plain Koine Greek, this supreme telling of roaming and parable is intrinsically so powerful that it survives translation with distinction in every tongue. And on each page the reader may overhear, in a reformation of openness, the solitary mystery of love." (p. 560)

The bible's anti-semitism is meticulously footnoted, contextualized and challenged, with the goal that moderns of all religious background might appreciate the world-class poetry of "the last great Jewish prophet." I loved this, for its immediacy and for the freshness that the restoration of Hebrew names gives. I found the stories reaching me as never before. As I read The New Covenant cover to cover in about a week I found myself unable to resist reading passages out loud, the way great poetry should be read.

This translation of the Gospels and Revelations succeeds wonderfully in giving us the Jew, Jesus, henceforth known by his REAL name, Y'shua, or Joshua in English. The King James translation--which itself was lifted from the Greek (who renamed Y'shua "Jesus")--Greco- and Anglo-cized Y'shua's Jewish life and teaching so much as to make it unrecognizable to its Hebraic self. By going back to the earliest texts and translations, the translators in this version correctly render the narrative in ample Hebraic tones and correct long held mistranslations of Hebrew and Aramaic, some of them so startling as to paint the narrative in starkly different hues and give us pause on numerous occasions to rethink the lessons we thought we knew. Evangelical Christians have recently discovered that the more they embrace the Jewish Y'shua, the more they discover their own Jewishness, and ultimately the closer they become to their Jewish neighbors and, more importantly, the man they believe is the Moshiach (Messiah) of the Jewish nation and, in believing in that, themselves as well. This book will deliver them in spades. For the Jew reading this translation, there is a chance to encounter in familiar Jewishness one of their own who--Moshiach or not--had a very Jewish life and taught very Jewish things to Jews, rebelled against the temple and the cops (sounds like Lenny Bruce, nu?), showed everyone the secret to channelling Hashem's mighty power, and in doing so, became the most famous Jew since Moses.

This translation makes the gospels more understandable and compelling by placing them in their historical and religious context. The first four books of the New Covenant (Testament) are revealed as poetic expressions of the human spiritual struggle in trying times, while retaining their Judaic context. This helps capture the true historical importance of Yeshua's message. Past translations are also put in their historical context, as the author discusses through the footnotes some of the intricacies and politics involved of Biblical translation. Retaining the original Jewish names of the characters alone has a powerful effect, making clear that Yeshua (Jesus) was not a Christian, and that past translations have sought to obscure the Gospels' essentially Jewish character.

The translation is without a doubt good throughout and from a literary standpoint, most excellent. It is quite possibly the type of translation that should serve as an antidote to the banal translations that have recently flooded the market that seek to establish a pop-culture aura around Jesus Christ the Nazarene. As opposed to many modern translations that try to make Jesus a rhinestone social activist, this translation's fidelity to historical context and literary ingenuity is nothing but commendable. It is fresh throughout and not infrequently ingenious.

Unfortunately, the annotations by the translator are quite scandalous to a Christian reader in that they presume that the Gospels are not historical documents of actual events, but are the result of a progressive anti-Semitism. Whereas the translator is willing to forbear charging the prophets such as Isaiah and Jeremiah of this crime (and they were no less scathing of their contemporaries than Jesus)he paints a picture for his reader that lacks a historical basis and is as prejudiced as the bigotry of those who actually are anti-Semitic.

Enjoy the translation if you wish to read it, but read the annotations with great discernment.

A refreshing translation that gives a completely new look at the New Testament. Everyone that owns a Bible should own this book.

Willis Barnstone wrote this new translation of the New Covnenant for two reasons: first, to allow English speaking readers to see the poetry and clarity of the original, and second, to restore the Gospels to their Jewish origins. He succeeds in his first goal: the translation itself is poetic and easily undertstood. Still, he does not greatly surpass the King James Version. Barnstone also succeeds in his second goal, but to a fault. It is refreshing to see the traditional names returned to their probable Jewish and Aramaic forms (Jesus is "Yeshua"). The problem lies within Barnstones copius notes and commentary. According to Barnstone, the original, Aramaic version of the Gospels (which has never been discoverd) was changed over the years, and the extant Greek versions are "politicized" and anti-Jewish. He sees anti-Judaism in everything from the existence of Judas Escariot to the Greek translation of Rabbi as "teacher." He points out over and over again places in the Gospels where he perceives this anti-Jewishness. This is a distraction and takes away from the reading of the Gospels. Buy this translation only if you're willing to wade through repetative, unnecessary commentary to get to a fair translation of the Gospels and Revelation; otherwise, look elsewhere.