The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas [Hardcover]

Willis Barnstone (Translator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 039306493X | ISBN-13: 978-0393064933 | Publication Date: October 1, 2009

From acclaimed scholar Willis Barnstone, The Restored New Testament—newly translated from the Greek and informed by Semitic sources.

For the first time since the King James Version in 1611, Willis Barnstone has given us an amazing literary and historical version of the New Testament. Barnstone preserves the original song of the Bible, rendering a large part in poetry and the epic Revelation in incantatory blank verse. This monumental translation is the first to restore the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew names (Markos for Mark, Yeshua for Jesus), thereby revealing the Greco-Jewish identity of biblical people and places. Citing historical and biblical scholarship, he changes the sequence of texts and adds three seminal Gnostic gospels. Each book has elegant introductions and is thoroughly annotated. With its superlative writing and lyrical wisdom, The Restored New Testament is a magnificent biblical translation for our age.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Starred Review. In an achievement remarkable by almost any standard, and surely one of the events of the year in publishing, renowned poet and scholar Barnstone has created a new and lavish translation—almost transformation—of the canonical and noncanonical books associated with the New Testament....The high bar Barnstone has set for himself is the creation of an English-language Scripture that will move poets much as the 1611 King James Version moved Milton and Blake. Only time will tell if Barnstone has achieved his goal, but his work is fascinating, invigorating, and often beautiful. Essential.” (Library Journal )

“This heroic enterprise, an expansive single-handed edition of the New Testament, is a substantial addition to the sixty-odd publications of the poet and translator Willis Barnstone.” (Frank Kermode - New York Review of Books )

About the Author

Willis Barnstone is a poet, translator, and religious scholar. Author of The Gnostic Bible, Cafè de l’Aube à Paris (French), and The Restored New Testament, he is a distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature and biblical studies at Indiana University. 

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1504 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039306493X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393064933
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Historical, New Translation by someone without Religious Bias, May 12, 2010

By 

R. Espiau (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (Hardcover)

The Restored New Testament is just what it claims to be. This is a new translation 2009, that was done by a man who is not a Catholic, baptist, pentacostal or born again; he is in fact a Professor of Comparitive literature. This aspect of the translation, of the translator not bringing a personal Christian religious bias into the translation, has made for an amazingly readable, alive and more accurate translation.
I love to study scriptures and recently read Scholar and textual critic, Bart Erman's "Misquoting Jesus", which I also highly reccomend, which gives the whole background and history of the translation of the bible. That said, if you know anything about the history of the Bible and its translations, then you know that this book is a pretty historic piece of work. It is the 1st time, to my knowledge, that anyone outside of the Christian religious community has attempted to translate the Bible, looking at it just from a literary standpoint. Barnstone has also returned into the New Testament all the removed Gnostic gospels related to other disciples.
When I checked it out at the library I was skeptical at first, but once I started reading it I could not put it down. In this translation Barnstone restores the original names and places in the NT to Hebrew and this brings a new comprehension and feeling to the teachings of Jesus and his disciples. One that reveals how they were not English, Greek or Roman but Jews. To have removed the Jewish flavor from the bible when it was originally translated by St. Jerome was a major mistake. Possibly one the many reasons that reinforced a perception that Jesus was somehow not Jewish but "Christian". A word not even used by him in any of the 4 gospels.
Restoring all the Hebrew brings Jesus teaching alive in a new way that is hard to explain. One can begin to see clearly how Jesus was really a revolutionary Jew who sought not to create a new religion called Christianity, but to restore a degenerated Judaism, or to restore simply his truth of God. If you read the additional chapters by the author and the footnotes, it is easy to see that this translation is probably, aside from its sources issues, one of the most accurate in english today. A monumental work that should be read by everyone who loves the teachings of Yeshua.
I cannot reccomend it enough. I would give it 6 stars also if I could.

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent, October 13, 2009

By 

David Karpook (Escondido, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (Hardcover)

Willis Barnstone aimed high with this volume and exceeded the mark. This new translation is a towering achievement. In restoring Hebrew personal and place names, he gives us a sense of continuity between the old and the new, and rightfully places the lives of Jesus, Paul, Peter, John and the many other figures in their proper context as 1st century Jews. In viewing the words of Jesus as blank verse, he unveils a poetic beauty that adds to the spiritual beauty of the lessons. Finally, his commentary and notes are extraordinary. If I could give this bookThe Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas six stars, I would.

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly Good News, October 10, 2009

By 

Joshua Shapiro (Chappaqua, NY USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas (Hardcover)

Historically, bibles were the most important of books. They transmitted family histories, served as the foundation for the oaths of office and inspired much world literature. Special as such, they were illuminated and bound in leather, gold, and jewels to denote their preciousness.

Publishing today is about ephemera, that driven by PR, briefly sell and then sink below memory, just junk food for the mind. Along comes the simply bound, but astonishingly beautiful Barnstone translation, that rightfully should be printed on vellum and bound in leather and rubies.

Thoughtful, gracious, careful, meaningful, and fulfilling are some of the appropriate descriptive adjectives that come to mind. Each page is richly satisfying, without being cloying, obtuse, or spicy.

The result is as striking as a Rembrandt that has had its historically yellowed, encrusted varnish gently removed, to reveal the exquisite detail, lucid transparency, and dazzling radiance of the original work.