There is a lot to admire in his patient diligence, working through issues using careful arguments and backed-up examples. There's no right answer - and there are many examples of how the same passage has been treated in different version of The Bible that illustrate and illuminate the question.

At the beginning of Goethe’s Faust, the scholar is puzzling over the best word to convey the Greek “logos”, used at the beginning of the Gospel of St John and most usually translated as “the Word”. Reception Theory Stan (look me up), i'm thrilled that my entire philosophy of language and literature has been distilled in this book. An exhilarating exploration of the medium through which almost everyone has encountered scriptureThe Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred.

He also notes that “the ‘adequacy’ (rather than perfection) of a translation is time- and context-bound. He is the author of numerous books on the Bible, co-editor of The Oxford Bible Commentary and editor of The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation . And it is not always the best translation: the vigour of William Tyndale’s description of Joseph (“the Lord was with Joseph and he was a lucky fellow”) makes the Alternative Version seem stodgy and corporate: “Joseph was a goodly person, and well-favoured. One comment/question I have is that there is no mention of the New American Bible and NABRE in the discussion of Catholic Bible translations; that seemed an odd omission. When they attempted to say no to filming some aspects of their lives, Jill discovered that a sheet of paper her father asked her to sign the day before her wedding was part of a contract in which she had unwittingly agreed to full cooperation.

It was also a chance to become wealthy, but Jill, who was dedicated to following the rules, didn’t question where the money went.His publications include The Theology of the Book of Amos (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile (2007).

Scholarly conundrums concerning translators’ priorities are illustrated with interesting examples from the biblical texts. His way through is to sift evidence carefully, and to be aware of ways in which his own religious position might influence his interpretation of this most complex and contentious of texts.Barton argues, however, that there are more possibilities available to translators than this single choice. For much of the history of Judaism and almost the entirety of Christianity, however, believers have overwhelmingly understood scripture not in the languages in which it was first written but rather in their own—in translation. From 1974 to 1991 I was Lecturer in Theology (Old Testament) and a Fellow of St Cross College, Oxford. Gaining this information has helped me understand how much critical thinking is required in reading any translation and to wish that those who believe that the Bible is simply the word of God would read this book. As an audiobook it’s harder to compare and contrast the translations cited as examples - particularly when the narrator, Neil Gardner’s, French and German accent and pronunciation are so poor that they’re a distraction.