There is a lot to admire in his patient diligence, working through issues using careful arguments and backed-up examples. To his great credit, Barton outlines both approaches, lists their virtues and then raises what counter-theses might be considered.

This book is not in any way a polemic – no fits of pique about why the King James version is the “proper” Bible. There is an Italian phrase “traduttore, traditore”, and a French phrase, “traduire, c’est trahir”, both of which roughly convey the same meaning: to translate is to betray (or traduce, or is a treason). This book is not a comparison of different Bible translations, but a study of how translators work, and the choices that they make.

I finished this book with a deeper understanding of and respect for the skills of a good translator: deep knowledge of the original language and a feel for its culture, and a nuanced, sophisticated command of (in this case) English. His belief in the plurality of the texts gathered together as Ta Biblia (Greek for “the books” – so the very title of the Bible is plural) brings with it a respectful pluralism in his attitudes towards religious faiths. Even though she was an adult, Jill’s parents and the show continued to expect more of the young couple.

It traces the challenges they faced, ranging from minute textual ambiguities to the sweep of style and the stark differences in form and thought between the earliest biblical writings and the latest, and explains the bearing these have on some of the most profound questions of faith: the nature of God, the existence of the soul and possibility of its salvation. nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass”, they imply “a settled agrarian community”. That explains why they can be internally inconsistent, but also how they can be thought of as texts that give a range of different angles on the life of Christ, even if they don’t all relate (in that common phrase) the gospel truth. He addresses the challenges facing all Bible translators, showing that every translation must be judged by the purposes for which it is framed and the community it addresses, persuasively demonstrating why there can never be one definitive translation of the Bible.which seems to suggest that the Authorised Version is the original and not a translation from Greek.

Barton suggests that the Book of Proverbs may well have been produced by something like Israel’s civil service. Particularly for the non-specialist Bible reader like myself, this seems likely to make one spend more time in the footnotes of one's Bible that one had previously been accustomed. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. There are doctrines concerning the nature of Christ that may not have been developed had New Testament authors read the Old Testament in Hebrew.Now, if you were to open the King James Version, you would get “Saul had reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years…” If you opened the New English Bible, lo and behold, it is “Saul was 50 years old when he became king”, and turning to the Revised English Bible, he is 30. The Persuasion of Love examines the implications of believing that the meaning o