The First Testament : a new translation / [print]
John Goldingay.
- Downers Grove, Illinois : IVP Academic, an imprint InterVarsity Press, (c)2018.
- xiv, 924 pages : maps ; 24 cm
In The First Testament: A New Translation, John Goldingay interrupts our sleepy familiarity with the Old Testament. He sets our expectations off balance by inviting us to hear the strange accent of the Hebrew text. We encounter the sinewed cadences of the Hebrew Bible, its tics and its textures. Translating words consistently, word by word, allows us to hear resonances and see the subtle figures stitched into the textual carpet. In a day of white-bread renderings of the Bible, here is a nine-grain translation with no sugar or additives. In The First Testament, the language of Zion comes to us unbaptized in pious religiosity. Familiar terms such as salvation, righteousness, and holiness are avoided. We perk up our ears to listen more carefully, to catch the intonations and features we had not caught before: "Yahweh said to Abram, "Get yourself from your country, from your homeland, and from your father's household, to the country that I shall enable you to see, and I shall make you into a big nation. I shall bless you and make your name big and you'll become a blessing." (Gen 12:1-2)