The New Testament Read online

  The New Testament

  Richmond Lattimore

  THE NEW TESTAMENT

  translated by

  RICHMOND LATTIMORE

  "

  Without the gaudy beauties of the King James version or the overly hip sound of some modern editions, Lattimore's New Testament possesses an austere, moving plainness, a willing­ness to shape long sentences, and an admirable clarity."

  -HIE WASHINGTON POST BOOL WORLIi

  Richmond Lattimore, among the most distinguished translators of the Greek classics, concluded late in life one of his most ambitious projects-a com­plete translation of the Mew Testament. Published in its entirety for the first time in 1996, this New Testament is itself a classic of another kind-the words of the Gospel and the apostles presented for the modern reader in fresh English by a writer without pretensions as a biblical scholar, who was an authority on the Greek language in which these texts have come down to us. The New York Times hailed the first volume as "an achievement that places us more deeply in Lattimore's debt than any other in a long and dili­gent career."

  Lattimore's aim was to provide a simple, literal rendering in which the syn­tax and order of the Greek dictate the character of the English style. He lets the words of the apostles and early disciples speak for themselves with an accuracy and fidelity to the original language that is a gift to today's reader.

  Beautiful ... the competence of the translator is unquestionable."

  -BIBI.E COLLECTORS' WORLD

  For this labor of love [Lattimore] conceived a language and vocabulary of complete simplicity and dignity ... an uncanny melding of the ancient and the contemporary that turns into something timeless as you read. Lattimore understood well the nature of his enterprise: not to make the New Testament contemporary in tone . . . but to make a past that is historical, legendary, and divine comprehensible in its own qualities to the present. In that, he has succeeded beyond all praise."-frederic koeppel

  ТНГ: [MEMPHIS) COMMERCIAL APPEAL

  richmond lattimore, whose renderings of the classics set new stan­dards for Greek translations, was for many years professor of Greek at Bryn Mawr. He died in 1 984.

  RELIGION I LITERATURE

  COVER DESIGN BY RODRIGO CORRAL

  STRAUS AND GIROUX

  COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY FREDERICK S. SCHMITT

  NORTH POINT PRESS A DIVISION OF FARRAR, www.fsgbooks.com

  USA $25.00 / CAN $31.00 ISBN-13: 978-0-86547-524-3 ISBN-10: 0-86547-524-5

  978086547524352500

  THE NEW TESTAMENT

  THE NEW TESTAMENT

  Translated by Richmond Lattimore

  North Point Press Farrar • Straus • Giroux New York

  North Point Press A division of Farar, Straus and Giroux 19 Union Square West, New York

  Copyright © 1996 by Alice B. Lattimore Al rights reserved Distributed in Canada by Douglas & Mclntyre Ltd. Printed in the United States of America First published in 1996 by North Point Press First paperback edition, 1997

  O^^^^y published by Farar, Straus and Giroux in two volumes as The Four Gospels and the Revelation, copyright © 1962, 1979 by Richmond Lattimore, and Acts and Letters of the Apostles, copyright © 1982 by Richmond Lattimore

  The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows: Bible. N.T. English. Lattimore. 1996.

  The New Testament / translated by Richmond Lattimore. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  O^^^y published in 2 v. c1979-c1982.

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-86547-524-3 Paperback ISBN-10: 0-86547-524-5

  I. Lattimore, Ricchmond Alexander, 1906- . П. Title. BS2095.L26 1996

  225.5'209—DC2096-23825

  PuBusHER's Non: The prefaces to each of the original volumes have been combined in this edition, and tended slightly, for readability.

  Contents

  Preface vii

  MARK 3 MATTHEW 49 LUKE 119 JOHN 195 ACTS

  The Acts of the Apostles 253 LETTERS

  The Letters of Saint Paul Romans 329

  Corinthians 358

  Corinthians 387 Galatians 406 Ephesians 416

  Philippians 426 Colossians 433

  Thessalonians 440

  Thessalonians 446

  Timothy 450

  Timothy 458 Titus 464

  Philemon 468

  The Letter to the Hebrews 470

  The General Letters James 492

  Peter 500

  Peter 508

  John 514

  John 522

  John 524 Jude 526

  THE REVELATI О N О F J О H N 531

  Notes 569

  Preface

  h IT WAS WHILE I WAS TEACHING V AR- ious Greek texts to beginning students that I was struck by the natural ease with which Revelation turned itself into English. I undertook the translation, and The Reve­lation of fohn appeared as a separate volume in 1962. I continued with the Four Gospels, but with many inter­ruptions for other tasks.

  I have held throughout to the principle of keeping as close to the Greek as possible, not only for sense and for individual words, but in the belief that fidelity to the original word order and syntax may yield an English prose that to some extent reflects the style of the original. The aim of at least some other contemporary translators has been, avowedly, just the opposite: to be faithful to the sense but to render it in contemporary idiom. This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate aim, and is part of the reason why there is room for a number of modem trans­lations.

  Let me illustrate. I have translated Mark 10.27: "For men it is impossible, but not for God, since for God all things are possible." I could have written: "Men cannot do it, but God can do anything." That says the same thing, but does not reflect the way Mark wrote. At John 11.21 and 32, first Martha, then Mary says: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." So I trans­lated, and cannot claim originality, for the words are iden­tical with those of the Revised Standard Version. I had thought that so simple a statement could be translated only in this one way. But I have not found it in any other translation that I have consulted.

  Consider a more extended passage. For Mark 7.1-5 I have written: "Then the Pharisees gathered to him, and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, seeing that some of the disciples were eating their bread with profane, that is, unwashed, hands: for the Pharisees, and all the Jews, will not eat unless they have washed hand against fist, thus keeping the tradition of their elders; and when they come from the marketplace they will not eat unless they have purified themselves, and there are many other observances that are traditional with them, the washing of cups and vessels both wooden and bronze: the Pharisees and the scribes asked him: Why do your disci­ples not walk according to the tradition of our elders, but eat their bread with profane hands?" Let me try to put this into what is more like a contemporary idiom: "The Pharisees, with some of the scribes, went out from Jeru­salem to visit him. They noticed that some of his dis­ciples ate without first washing their hands, which made their hands profane. The Pharisees and the Jews in gen­eral observe a tradition handed down from their ancestors not to eat without first washing their hands thoroughly. When they come in from the marketplace they will not eat until they have purified themselves. They have many other such traditions, like washing their cups, whether these are made of wood or bronze. Because of all this the

  Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus: Why do your dis­ciples disobey our ancestral tradition by eating with pro­fane hands? "

  Now, other modem translators have modernized this passag
e much more successfully than I have. My heart is not in this kind of rearrangement of the syntax. Still, all the essential meaning is there. But to me it reads much less like Mark than the version which stands in my translation.

  It will follow, or should, that since each of the Gospels, and Revelation, is the work of a diferent author with a different style, they should read differently in English. I noted that Revelation seemed to translate itself, and my aim has been to let all of my texts translate themselves with as little interference as possible. But it is not always so easy. To go from Revelation to Matthew is like going from Ruskin to Carlyle. Mark in particular offers prob­lems. Since Mark is, by general if not universal consent, the earliest evangelist, we start with his gospel. Matthew and Luke drew on him extensively, but constantly saw fit to rewrite him after their ownwn manners. He can, as illustrated above, be abrupt and crabbed. Also, the nature of the language itself produces difficulties. There are some terms, such as the various forms of skandalon (see note on Matthew 5.29, page 572), which cannot always be translated in the same way, which really cannot be trans­lated at all, but for which the translator will have to devise some kind of paraphrase which will convey the essential sense.

  fl THE FOUR GOSPELS ARE FOLLOWED IN the New Testament by the Acts of the Apostles, which, though far from being a complete account, is the earliest consecutive story of early Christianity that we have. It can be regarded as a continuation of The Gospel According to Luke. This is implied in the opening sentence, ad­dressed, as is the Gospel, to Theophilus; and there is little or no doubt among scholars that the author is the Luke of the Gospel.

  Acts begins with the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven and the formation of the church in Jerusalem. From there, Christianity is preached abroad by various ministers. In the early part of the story the dominant figure is Saint Peter. The second half of the work, however, becomes almost exclusively the tale of Saint Paul: his missions to the Greek cities of the Roman Empire (the Gentiles), the oppositions he encountered, his arrest in Jerusalem, and his arrival in Rome. Not long after that arrival, Luke somewhat abruptly (as it seems to me) ends his story. Paul spent some time as a prisoner in Rome. He is usually thought to have been martyred during the persecutions of Christians when Nero was Emperor, perhaps in a.d. 64, or on an individual charge before that, but the evidence is not conclusive.

  Acts is usually dated with and immediately after Luke, about a.d. 85. That would put it considerably later than Paul's own writings. Still, it is useful to read it first, so as to have a more or less continuous background for Paul's letters.

  These, the Epistles of Paul as they are canonically called, are his letters to various Christian communities or churches. They sometimes address themselves to par­ticular problems, but also set forth, again and again, Paul's own theological doctrines and his principles for Christian behavior. There are also four letters to individuals.

  For the letters of Paul I have followed a traditional order, but a better sense of time would be gained by reading them in some such order as this: First, letters written before the journey to Rome: First and Second Thessalo- nians, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Romans; and then the letters from Rome: Colossians (with Phile­mon, to a member of that community), Ephesians, and Philippians.

  The two letters to Timothy and the one to Titus are commonly grouped together and known as the Pastoral Letters. Timothy and Titus are well known as associ­ates of Paul, and the letters bear his characteristic self- identification at the beginning. But their authenticity has been seriously questioned. The style and language differ in places from what is characteristic of Paul's other writ­ing, while the three do resemble one another in those respects. First Timothy and Titus speak of the institution of bishops and elders, which seems to point to a later stage in the development of the Church.

  The Letter to the Hebrews is included with the letters of Paul, but the name of Paul does not appear in the text. There have been many speculations about date and au­thorship, but no final answer (except, perhaps, that it is not by Paul).

  Next comes the group known as The General Letters (or Catholic Epistles, Epistoloi Katholikoi). The name sig­nifies that they are addressed (most of them at least) to the whole Christian community rather than to separate churches, as Paul's letters were. The Letter of fames is believed by some to be the work of James the brother of Jesus Christ, one of the chief men in the original church in Jerusalem. The First Letter of Peter is often credited to the great apostle himself. Not so The Second Letter of Peter, which has close afnities with The Letter of Jude.

  This, in tum, may just possibly be from the hand of the Jude (Judah, Judas) who was also a brother of Jesus Christ. As for the three letters ascribed to John, the second two are brief real letters apparently by the same writer. The First Letter of John, though it, too, may be by the same author, is quite different. It is a tract or homily, which shows strong resemblances to the Fourth Gospel, and is thought by some to be the work of the same John. Not one of these attributions can be called certain.

  In general, I have translated Acts and Letters as a com­panion piece to The Four Gospels, following the same principle of trying to let the authors of the Greek speak for themselves in English. In the case of Saint Paul, that has not always been so easy.

  I have written some simple notes, to explain my translations or give alternative interpretations. Without competence to comment on the manuscript tradition, I have simply followed the text of Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek (New York: Macmillan, 1957). The rare exceptions have been noted. Words enclosed in square brackets are of doubtful authenticity. I have also regularly consulted The Pelican Gospel Commentaries, namely, D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark; J. C. Fenton, Saint Matthew-, G. B. Caird, Saint Luke; and John Marsh, Saint John.

  I have also made far greater use of the great dictionary which can be cited, briefly, as W. F. ^mdt and F. W. Gingrich (and now F. W. Danker), A Greek-English Lex­icon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd edition (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1958).

  It is a pleasure to record my obligations and thanks: to my publishers; to Alice Lattimore for help in preparing the manuscript; to Frederick Morgan for recommending publication, and to the memory of Fred Wieck, the earliest editor of my poems and translations.

  MARK

  Mark is believed to have written his gospel after Peter's death in Rome, which is presumed to have been around A.D. 64. It is generally agreed that Mark's is the earliest of the four gospels.

  tl THE BEGINNING OF THE GOSPEL OF Jesus Christ. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet: Be­hold, I send forth my messenger before your face, who will make ready your way. The voice of one crying in the desert: prepare the way of the Lord, make straight the roads before him. John the Baptist was in the desert preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. And all the land of Jud.aea c^e out to him and all the people of Jerusalem, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. John was clothed in camel's hair, and a belt of hide around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying: He who is stronger than I is coming after me, and I am not fit to stoop down and untie the thong of his shoes. I baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

  And it happened in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. And as soon as he came out of the water he saw the skies split and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him; and there came a voice from the skies, saying: You are my son whom I love, with you I am well pleased. And immediately the Spirit drove him out into the desert. And he was in the desert forty days, being tested by Satan, and he lived with the wild animals, and the angels served him.

  After John was betrayed Jesus came into Galilee preach­ing th
e gospel of God, saying: The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe in the gos­pel. And as he went along past the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting their nets in the sea, for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them: Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. And at once they left their nets and followed him. And going on a little farther he saw James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, these also in their boat mending their nets. And at once he called them. And leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired workers they went away, and followed him.

  They came into Capernaum. And at once on the sab­bath he went into the synagogue and taught; and they were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one who has authority and not like the scribes. And immedi­ately in their synagogue there was a man possessed by an unclean spirit, and he cried out, saying: What is there between us and you, Jesus of Nazareth? Did you come to destroy us? I know you, who you are, God's holy one. Jesus reproved him, saying: Be silent and go out from him. And convulsing him and crying out in a great voice the unclean spirit went out of the man. All were amazed, so that they took counsel together, saying: What is this thing: a new kind of teaching? By his authority he gives orders even to unclean spirits, and they obey him. And immediately the rumor of him spread into the whole re­gion about Galilee.

  When they came out of the synagogue, they went im­mediately to the house of Simon and Andrew, along with James and John. And Simon's mother-in-law was lying in a fever, and they told him about her forthwith. He went over and took her by the hand and raised her; and the fever left her, and she served them. When it was evening, after the sun set, they brought to him all those who were ill, and those afflicted with demons, and the whole city was assembled before his door. And he healed many who were ill with various diseases, and he cast out many de­mons, and would not let them speak, because they knew him. Then very early in the morning he got up and went out to a lonely place, and there he prayed. Simon and his companions went in search of him, and found him, and said to him: All are looking for you. He said to them: Let us go elsewhere, to the neighboring communities, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I set out to do. And he went into all of Galilee preaching in the synagogues and casting out demons.