The New Testament Paperback – October 30, 1997

Richmond Lattimore was a poet and eminent translator of ancient Greek classics. His translations of the Iliad and Odyssey are considered by many to be the best available. Late in life he decided to translate the New Testament.The best part about Lattimore's New Testament is its visual beauty and readability that facilitate longer reading experiences.Format:Verse references have been extracted from the text and the text overall has been formatted into paragraphs. This makes it very easy to read long portions of Scripture without feeling bogged down. Also chapter numbers have been removed and replaced with full paragraph breaks and pilcrows, where new chapters begin. However, chapter and verse references do appear at the top of pages to help you locate yourself in the text. The text size and line spacing is perfect, larger than most modern Bibles, and paper quality is thicker, comparable to a modern novel feel. This is probably the look and feel Adam Greene is going for with BIBLIOTHECA.Construction:I have the hardbound edition, which is solidly constructed and has a sown binding. The hardbound edition has a book jacket with a picture of what seems to be a dead man's face as cover art. Not what I want to look at before I open the Bible. I removed it and found a beautiful red cardboard cover and a black textured cloth spine with gold lettering. It makes the volume look way better. Very classic.Translation:This version is a very readable and fresh translation and yet still remains close to the more literal translations out there. Lattimore's translation has a few noticeable differences that seem within the allowable range of meaning of the Greek, but just aren't typical renderings. For instance, often for "heaven" in the book of Revelation, he simply translates "sky." "Stumble you" is often translated as "makes you go amiss." "Son of Man" is rarely capitalized. But if you are using this version as a supplemental version, I don't see how those things would be a problem. There is an appendix with language notes and explanations of translation choices.Lattimore states his principle of translation in the preface:"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."And then later:"It will follow, or should, that since each of the Gospels, and Revelation, is the work of a different author with a different style, they should read differently in English... But it is not always so easy. To go from Revelation to Matthew is like going from Ruskin to Carlyle."Lattimore places Mark, whose style he says can be "abrupt and crabbed", as the first Gospel. Not a big deal to me.Take away:If you like to own multiple versions of the Bible and are looking for a reader-friendly Bible that has the clout of an eminent classical Greek translator, then pick this up right away.

The translator is a Greek scholar who literally wrote the book on Greek to English translations. Additionally, he is not a pastor or a Bible scholar per se, so he does not approach it with certain presuppositions that other translators might. Because of this, while reading, you can discern a different writing style from each writer. Some write shorter, choppier sentences, some are longer and are more poetic or metaphorical in nature. It's not to discount other New Testament translations, however, if you give this to someone to translates Greek to English, like your pastor, they will love the fidelity and artistry with which Mr. Lattimore translates. It's simply a work of art while maintaining the syntax of the original text.

Finally a vesrsion of the New Testament that reads as it was supposed to be read...in prose!This is in my opinion Lattimore's best translations. He completed the undertaking right up until his death and used the original Greek sources as the basis for the translation.It reads easily and eloquently, and one doesn't feel as if you're reading a translation as one often does in Lattimore's other ancient Greek translations.Lattimore's doesn't really take any major risks in his version (as say Proffesor E. V. Rieu does in his translation of the 4 Gospels). But as he plays it safe, the stories take on a vastly different character then one's used to with the verse-narrative of the King James version for instance.While Lattimore's collection doesn't contain every single letter, epistle etc. of the New Testment, it does have all the major books worth reading, especially a great translation of Revelation, something that doesn't often get re-interpreted!As always, the Old and New Testaments contain many errors, and have been mistranslated and copied incorrectly and include various forgeries, which are all hard to spot and know about. But by far this is the best modern compilation on the market today, with pleasing print and spacings.

I thought the translation was wonderful and I enjoyed the was the author arranged the text -- not in the canonical chapter and verse but in paragraph style. Also the author made a concerted effort to write the text as the original writer wrote and not just to get the ideas across. I enjoyed reading this version of the New Testament and found it hard at times to put down.What I did not like was the kindle version. The footnotes in the back were not hyper linked so to find where the footnote applied one had to go thru a fairly tedious process (either track down the chapter and verse in the text or as the ebook recommended use your search feature on your device). This is not a showstopper but makes for a real pain and it is very very difficult to track the notes when you read thru the text -- the footnotes pertained to translation items so if that does not interest you or you dont like to track down this is not a big deal.All in all once you get below book level (items in the table of contents) you will need to find things the old fashioned, non ebook way.However, as I said I think the translation is well worth reading, I really enjoyed it and it is mostly set up to read straight thru. I loved reading this New Testament translation.