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Jesus A modern English blending of the New Testament
Introduction Table of Contents
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PREFACE Jesus Christ is undoubtedly the single most influential figure
in the history of Western civilization. His influence touches the daily life
of every individual. Yet, most know little about him. More often than not,
what they do know has been altered by myth and colored by misconception.
The story of his birth is familiar through numberless recounting at Christmas
time, as are the details of his death through annual Easter celebrations,
but his life and his teachings are little known and less understood. The Jesus portrayed in the four accounts in the gospels is
unlike the commonly held conceptions of him, and anyone expecting to read
in these pages of the "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" will be caught by surprise.
Gentle he was; meek and mild he certainly was not. To many, including many
Christians, Jesus is seen as a hopelessly idealistic demi-deity, his brow
halo-encircled, his face beatific, his body frail and ethereal - God, yes,
but not really man. They forget that in the gospels he was sweaty after effort
and dirty after a journey; that he wept, felt fatigue, was sometimes impatient,
and was, on occasion, angry. He said of himself, "I came not to bring peace,
but a sword," and as a consequence his ministry was passionate with conflict
and noisy with controversy. Meek and mild? - he is more aptly described as
a disturber, revolutionary. Indeed, the charges that led to his being sentenced
to death were that he challenged the system and stirred sedition among the people. And he said the unthinkable: that he was the son
of God. It should be understood that what is presented here is not
nor does it purport to be another translation of the gospels: it is a synthesis
of the gospels rendered in a paraphrase. Some biblical scholars hold that
such a synthesis is neither possible nor desirable, and maintain that the
fourfold picture in indispensable to a full understanding of Jesus and of
Christianity's beginnings. The editors of this book would concur but would
assure also that, while each of the four narratives is unique and irreplaceable,
the whole is infinitely richer than any one. Further, it is the hope of the
editors that this book will motivate many to undertake a careful examination
of the four gospels. To encourage this, an Index has been included, listing
each of the sources in the gospels on which each page of the synthesis has
been based. It was recognized by the Editorial Committee that it is not
possible to fuse the four gospels perfectly into one any more than it is
possible to translate poetry perfectly. That having been granted, however,
it must be said that it is possible to translate poetry and it is possible
to make a synthesis of the gospels. In each case the result may not be entirely
satisfactory - the poem loses something in the translation and the synthesis
loses the individual character of each gospels - but it is better to have
a poem in translation than not at all, as it is advantageous to have the
entire life of Jesus available in a single narrative. Even a casual student of the New Testament will be aware
of the problems that must be faced in any attempt to achieve a synthesis
of the four gospels. The Editorial Committee was acutely aware that all of
the difficulties are not subject to satisfactory resolution and began its
task by establishing a set of criteria to be applied when dealing with such
instances. The criteria were: (1) While it is desirable to avoid pointless
repetition this must never be achieved through the omission on any fact recorded
in the gospels. (2) Where so-called "insoluble variations" in the texts are encountered, care must be taken in making the
synthesis to include all of the details given by the gospel writers, so long
as doing so does not create ambiguity. And whenever, for the sake of clarity,
a significant fact must be omitted, reference must be made to that fact in
the footnote. (3) A blending of the various accounts must never be achieved
by structuring a composite that does violence to the meaning of the original
texts. (4) In reconciling difficulties, care must be taken not to do so through
the introduction of any theological, denominational, philosophical, or personal
bias. A further problem the Editorial Committee faced was caused
by the fact that some biblical scholars argue that certain passages in the
gospels should not be included in any translation since they are not in the
earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Some of these passages are the most
familiar: the story of the woman taken in adultery, the mention of the angel
stirring the water in the pool of Siloam, the reference to the appearance
of the angel and Jesus' "bloody sweat" while praying in Gethsemane. The decision
was to include all such passages because they have been a part of Christian
story for centuries and because the paraphrase is not intended to be a commentary
on the textual material. A further problem lay in the fact that a most careful study
of gospels does not reveal either the time or place of certain events. In
such instances the Editorial Committee arbitrarily inserted the events into
the narrative at points where they would enhance the flow of account but
not do violence to either the text itself or the context. The two genealogies posed a particular problem. It is not
possible to synthesize them for many reasons, the principal one being that
the purposes of the gospel writers were different and as the consequence
their approaches were different. The genealogies are "hard reading", and
rather than deter a reader at the beginning of the story of Jesus' life,it was decided to include both genealogies but to place
them in an Appendix. The book here presented is the result of the labors of
five men, a unique combination of biblical scholars, educators, and communicators.
The original work on the synthesis was done by Charles B. Templeton,
of Toronto, Canada, over a period of six months in 1948. The first draft
of the paraphrase was not begun until March, 1972 and was completed in September
of that year. The draft then went through four revisions. The Editorial Committee was formed to ensure that the text
remained faithful to the sources and did not lose any of the nuances embodied
in the original languages. Additionally, the Committee made fundamental contributions
in the clarification of the meaning of difficult passages, in the final determination
of the sequence of events, and in matters of style and the validity of the
contemporary idioms employed. The Editorial Committee comprised Charles Templeton, Dr.
David Noel Freedman, Dr. Theodore Gill, Dr. William Summerscales and Thomas
Harpur. Two of the Committee were born in the United States, two were born
in Canada and one in England. Mr. Templeton has a unique background in the fields of
communications and the ministry. A Canadian Journalist, he did special studies
at Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, New Jersey, and was ordained
in the Presbyterian Church USA. He has been Associate Director of the Board
of Evangelism of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
and Director of Evangelism for the Presbyterian Church USA. No longer in
the ministry, in recent years Mr. Templeton has been Executive Managing Editor
of the Toronto Daily Star, Director of News and Public Affairs for
the Canadian Television Network and Editor of Maclean's Magazine.
David
Noel Freedman holds a B.A. (University of California
at Los Angeles), a Th.B. (Princeton Theological Seminary), and a Ph.D. (Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland). Dr. Freedman is Director of the
program of studies in Religion and Professor of Near Eastern Languages and
Literatures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He was previously Dean
of San Francisco Theological Seminary, the Editor of the Journal of Biblical
Literature, and Director of the American School of Oriental Research
in Jerusalem. He is recognised as one of the foremost biblical scholars in
the world and is General Editor of the Anchor Bible series. Theodore Gill has a B.A. (University of Wisconson), a
Th.B. (Princeton Theological Seminary), and a D.Theol. (University of Zurich,
Switzerland). Dr. Gill was formerly Executive Director of the Commission
on Higher Education in Geneva, Switzerland, President of San Francisco Theological
Seminary, and Editor of The Christian Century magazine. He is now
Chairman of Division of Humanities of John Jay College of the City University
of New York. William Summerscales holds a B.A., Th.B. (Eastern Nazarene
College, Quincy, Massachusets), a M.Div. (San Francisco Theological Seminary),
an M.A. (University of Toronto), and a Ph.D. (Columbia University, New York
City). Dr. Summerscales was formerly the Director Of Experimental Lay Studies
with the Board Of Education of the United Presbyterian Church and is now
Associate Professor of Education and Director of Institutional Development,
Teachers' College, Columbia University. Thomas Harpur holds a B.A. (University of Toronto), an M.A.
(Oxon), a B.Theo. (Wycliffe College, Toronto), and was a Rhodes Scholar.
Professor Harpur was formerly Professor of New Testament at Wycliffe College,
Toronto. He is now Religion Editor of the Toronto Daily Star. |