GOOD AS NEW

THE ONE TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

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by John Henson 

The business of translating most of the Christian scriptures into a version understandable in the 21st century has at times been a bit of a chore for the last twelve years, but only at times. For the most part it has been very exciting and full of surprises. I have never had to read the scriptures so intently, meditating on every word, every nuance, every possible meaning, especially looking for what others have missed. Sometimes it came easily, or there was a sudden moment of revelation, at other times I had to agonize for days over a very small section. I recalled the words of the composer Benjamin Britten about his own art, "Composition is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration". I was many times taken back to what I was taught in college forty years ago, to recall what I had learnt and almost forgotten, and sometimes to rethink what I had been taught and to come to the opinion it had not been quite right. One of the hot potatoes in my Oxford days, a frequent topic for an exam question, was the expression 'Son of Man', so often used by Jesus. How would we express that nowadays? With great difficulty! We considered (not just me, but others) 'The True Human', which would almost do and nearly made it. Finally we came up with 'The Complete Person', which takes a bit of getting used to, but is just a shade closer to the meaning in today's terms.

The problem is, as we students had to make clear in our exam answers, that in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus' Bible, the words 'Son of Man' mean at least three different things on different occasions. 1) As often as not the words are simply another word for 'humankind'. Psalm 8: 4 "What is man that thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him" or as the NRSV correctly puts it, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you are for them?" 2) In the book of Daniel, 'Son of Man' refers to the community of God's people. It stands for a collection of those who are the citizens of God's Kingdom. Daniel 7:22, 'When the Ancient One came, then judgement was given for the holy ones of the Most High (ie 'Son of Man') and the time arrived when the holy ones (Son of Man) gained possession of the kingdom.' 3) Then there were books that never got into the Jewish Bible or ours, such as the Book of Enoch, where the Son of Man appears as Superman, a picture of what the writer thought Messiah would be like perhaps. Which one of these meanings did Jesus have in mind when he used the expression? That's the problem! Maybe something different altogether? 

We use the title 'Son of God' for Jesus. But that was a title he never used for himself. Others used it of him. Jesus called himself 'Son of Man'. 'Son of God' for the Jewish people meant 'Messiah', though for us it has come to mean the idea of God's special revelation in Jesus. But Jesus did not wish people to get excited about the idea he might be Messiah. It was politically dangerous and a distraction from the main plot, the coming of God's New World in people's minds and hearts. So perhaps he used the term 'Son of Man' simply because it was vague and capable of many interpretations. He seems to have used it almost as a nickname. As we might say, "Yours Truly had a nice surprise yesterday" meaning ourselves, Jesus might say, "The Son of Man could do with a rest" meaning himself, "This chap here." When I have come to the conclusion that is how Jesus is using 'Son of Man', I have just translated it 'I' or 'me'. Sometimes, however, Jesus seems to include his followers in the title, and at other times the whole of humankind. I have tried to make these instances clear. It meant making choices that could be wrong. The same goes for anyone who translates or interprets scripture.

Let's look at three places in Mark where Jesus uses the expression 'Son of Man' where I hope our new translation has thrown new light.

1. The Guilt-Sick Man.

Yes he was ill, paralysed from head to toe. The Strict Set taught that if you suffered from a serious illness it meant that you were a 'sinner' and that God was punishing you. This man had done something wrong, something public that everybody knew about, and so he was declared an outcast, a sinner, by the God Squad. If he hadn't been feeling guilty before, he felt guilty now, and the guilt played on his mind until it affected every part of his body. 

Jesus came not to make people feel guilty, but to free them from guilt. In the presence of Jesus in Rocky's home by the lake in Nahum-Town, the guilt-sick man was first relieved of his guilt and then his paralysis. But who performed this double healing? 

The Strict Set were incensed, they talked of blasphemy- only God could forgive sins. "Okay", says Jesus, let's show you that this man's sins have been forgiven here today- watch this!" Then he said to the man, "You can get up now and go home" and the man got up and went home, jumping up and down, singing praises. But who had performed the miracle? 

We have been taught that the Pharisees were angry because Jesus claimed to forgive sins. But even in the traditional translations, if we read carefully, we see that this is not clear. The man had been brought to Jesus by four friends. For them this man was not an outcast. They were still his friends; whatever he had done they had not rejected him; they loved and cared for him; and they brought him to Jesus. 

So we read, (traditional version now), "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven!" When Jesus saw their faith- the faith of the four friends who had continued to accept the man they still regarded as their friend-, then Jesus said as a statement of fact, "Your sins are forgiven!" He did not say, "I now forgive your sins." It had already been done by the four friends. Their care and acceptance of him amounted to an act of forgiveness in the eyes of Jesus. No wonder the God Squad were livid. Perhaps a rabbi or a prophet might forgive in the name of God, but not these common folk! 

"I'll show you," says Jesus; "I'll show you that the Son of Man can forgive sins. Let's see if what these friends have done for this man have made him better- Son of Man here means, yes, ordinary human beings, you and me, 'we'. In the Good-as-New translation in Mark we translate the Son of Man as 'we'.

"I'm going to show you that we can forgive wrongs, here on earth.."

These friends loved their friend so much, they forgave and accepted him so completely, they were prepared to do damage to property. I wonder what the bill was to repair the roof? I can imagine Rocky's mother-in-law saying, "Look at the mess! Look what they've done to my lovely house!" Yes, but you see, if you invite Jesus into your home, it's not your house any longer- it belongs to Jesus, it's for his use. Did you realise that- did anybody tell you when you became a Christian? They should have done! I sometimes wonder if the reason we have church buildings is in part to keep people away from our houses! Jesus calls us to be the Son of Man, the Complete Person, the complete Christian community. I wonder, are we yet worth the name?

2. Responsible Adults.

One Saturday afternoon, the Jewish Rest Day, Jesus and his friends were going for a stroll through the cornfields. The members of the Strict set seemed to be having a walk too. You were allowed to walk a 'Sabbath day's journey' - a short walk, carefully measured. Was it by accident that they just happened to be going the same way or were they tailing Jesus and his friends to see just what they got up to? I've done it many a time, picked a few ripe ears of corn, rolled them in the palms of my hands, blown away the husks, then munched the grains. "Caught your disciples in the very act", shout the Pharisees with glee. "Reaping the corn and threshing it on the holy Rest Day!". 

Jesus had an answer for the Pharisees, as he always did. They didn't know their Bibles! Did they not know what their hero David did one Sabbath day? See them blush. They had no idea what Jesus was talking about. (How to beat a fundamentalist? Know your Bible!) Jesus reminded them that David entered the holy of holies on the sacred day and took the holy bread only the priests were allowed to eat and gave it to his hungry soldiers. "Because you think of the Bible as a book of rules, you don't know what its all about", said Jesus. "God made the Sabbath for our benefit- David realised that but you don't!" Then he went on to say, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." 

Who did Jesus mean when he used the words, "Son of Man" in the cornfields? To whom had God given the right to make responsible, adult decisions? Who had been plucking the corns? Not Jesus, but his friends. They thought it was an okay sort of thing to do. They were the Son of Man, The Complete Person. They appreciated and used the gifts God had provided for humankind.

In the story of the Cornfields, The Son of Man, the Complete Person, stands for all those who live their lives as responsible adults, making choices in the light of the love of God as seen in Jesus. 

3. I am what I am.

Jesus was on trial before Guy, the Chief of the Clergy. Wisely he kept quiet most of the time, refusing to answer trivial and irrelevant questions, much to the annoyance of the interrogators. Finally, Guy lost his patience and personally challenged Jesus with a key question: "Are you the Chosen One, God's Own?" According to each of the gospels Jesus neatly ducked answering the question, - according to Matthew he replied, "That's for you to say!" He was right- it was the job of the High Priest to identify and acknowledge the Messiah -the Messiah should not have to do the job for him! According to Luke Jesus said, "You've already formed your opinion, so what's the point in telling you anything? You're not open to a meeting of minds." (According to John's Gospel, it was Pilate who asked the crucial question, (trad) "Are you the King of the Jews?" and Jesus replied, Was it your idea to ask me that question, or have other people been talking to you about me?")

But in Mark's Gospel Jesus replied, "I am!" which looks like an admission, except that it wasn't. It was the same answer God gave to Moses when Moses asked God for his name. God replied, "I am who I am. You shall say to the Israelites 'I Am' has sent me to you." (Ex 3: 14) 'I Am', as every Jew knew, was an abbreviation of 'I am who I am'. It was God's way of refusing to answer the question, but the Jews took it ever after to mean that 'I Am' was God's name, and so they kept those words ('Yahweh') holy by never uttering them. But Jesus uttered the words, meaning what God had meant to Moses, "I'm not telling you. I am who I am."

Guy reckoned he had got Jesus. Jesus had blasphemed. He had uttered the divine name. Everyone else agreed. But before he got to rip his clothes as a symbol of disgust, Jesus got his message in: (trad) "You shall see the Son of Man, sitting at the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven." And we have been as foolish as Guy in thinking those words to be prophetic of the 'second coming', whereas Jesus was talking about the reality of the then and there. He was using the language of the Book of Daniel where 'Son of Man' means the community of God's people. "It's all happening before your eyes", says Jesus. "Can't you see that a New World is dawning, just as Daniel said it would? Can't you see I'm creating before your very eyes a new humanity, which I will carry with me into the very presence of God as the completed creation God intended? Yes, you will see it before your very eyes. You will see lives changed, you will see people made new, you will see love in the place of power, forgiveness in the place of vengeance, tolerance and understanding in the place of prejudice and bigotry!" 

Of course, Guy didn't understand a word of what Jesus was talking about. He'd had three years to listen to the message of Jesus. He was not going to listen now! Guy's successors still don't understand. Like the apostles of old, they are still looking up into the sky waiting for Jesus to come and do something about the world. Jesus said, "I am with you always". Jesus is always doing something, - in cooperation with his people, together with the community of the Son of Man, The Complete Person, and they don't even have to be signed-up Christians! 

(G-a-N) Jesus said, "I am what I am. You're going to see my new humanity championed by God. The Complete Person will break the barrier between time and eternity."

The Son of Man, The Complete Person, was Jesus's favourite name for himself, and it is his name for you and me when we follow him. When we behave as responsible adults with the guts to make bold and courageous decisions; when we become a forgiving, accepting and healing community; when we catch the vision of God's New World and commit ourselves to bring it about.  

DISCUSSION BOARD WITH JOHN HENSON. His website is http://homepage.ntlworld.com/upatree

Click to go to :-

Numbering verses

God the father

Hell

Peter

Authority

Revelation

 Subject:  Numbering of verses in GAN

Question  My wife  and I are reading your Other Temptations ... and try to  read  the references in it in your Good As New.  But the absence of verse numbers in GAN makes this difficult or  impossible. Any ideas?
 
ANSWER Any ideas? not really. The traditional verses are  artficial and  often give a misleading idea of the flow of the author's thought.  Also their  presence lends an academic feel to the work, which we want to avoid. We need  to give the (correct) impression that the gospels are story books and not  student text books. I have the same problem as you when trying to compare my renderings with more traditional ones. The presence of some text numbers is  a compromise to give those familiar with other translations some idea where  they are. (Also they give some idea of where a new theme, or group of  stories/parables is being introduced.) New readers will not need this aid and  even their sparse presence may be off putting, apart from their presence  being incorrect from a translation point of view, since they do not exist in  the Greek. My compromise is the same as taken by J.B. Phillips in his  translation to whom I am arrogant enough to see myself as successor. He also  realised that verses gave a misleading impression of what actually was being  said. I simply advise you to read longer sections of the script and then ask  the question, "What is this all about?" However, trying to spot how the  expressions I use correspond with the expressions used in other translations  can be fun and informative. The wide sweep approach is much more likely to  give you the true meaning than the analytical appproach, though both are  important exercises. The average reader will get bogged down and misled by  reading Romans text by text. For the first time ever, since the very first  time, readers have the chance to read Romans at speed and grasp where Paul's  thought is going and not lose the thread. (Rowan Williams believes  that this  is what makes my work new and ground-breaking. He's not the only scholar to  think so.)

SUBJECT  : Translation of "pater".

QUESTION. This is a reply to a letter from someone who objected to the translation of 'pater' (Greek and Latin for 'father') by the word 'parent' in John 10:22 onwards. The reading from Good As New was used in a radio broadcast service from St. David's Cathedral, Pembrokeshire. The correspondent was relaxed about the language of the rest of the reading. It was the word 'parent' that called forth his objection.

ANSWER. Dear friend,

Your letter to the Dean of St. David's has been passed on to me. I am the co-ordinator of 'Good As New' - 'a radical retelling of the Scriptures', which is predictably causing hot debate throughout the world, since it is very different from anything that came before. I suspect there is little chance of you being reconciled to it and it might indeed make you very angry, but many are finding Jesus for the first time through its pages and that is its intention.

You seem to have a very naïve understanding of translation. There is no such thing as an accurate translation, only a translation that conveys the intention of the writer to the reader as readily as possible. It is impossible to translate any language into another word for word. But in the case of the scriptures we have the added problem of translating from one culture to another, over a gulf of 2,000 years, truths we believe to have permanent significance. Previous translations have always sought to assuage the needs of the intellectually élite as a priority. The rest, for whom the scriptures were primarily meant in the first place, have been left to struggle as best they can. This new translation attempts to bridge the cultural gap in many ways, and tries to get on board those not academically orientated. It also seeks to include the valuable insights of liberation and feminist theology that have recently been made available to us. Your words "keep the feminists happy" gives you away as one who believes that women have no right to their own special understanding and appreciation of God. I am one of many men who have found the new insights of our Christian sisters exciting and liberating, and true to the mind of Jesus.

You are right - 'parent' is not an exact equivalent of 'pater.' But neither is our word 'father' because 'father' in our culture is something 'not-quite-the-same' as in Hebrew first century culture. It would take a long essay to discuss this point. But sufficient to say that the roles of mother and father are less strongly delineated in our modern culture. The ideal father or mother today includes both mother and father roles traditionally understood. More important is the cruel fact that large sections of our population only have one 'parent' , most often the mother, who is obliged to double for both roles. Our object is to include them in the experience of ideal fatherhood/parenting Jesus conveyed to his first hearers. I believe the main object of Jesus was to convey the sense of someone who loved them and stood by them eternally. We usually translate 'Father' in the sense of the first person of the Trinity as 'The Loving God'. In the reading from St. David's Cathedral the use of the word 'parent' or 'ancestor' was more appropriate since ancestry and parenting was the subject of the dispute between Jesus and his opponents. Yes, you are right 'parent' does not always mean 'father'. But neither does 'father' always mean 'parent' Only a father who parents in love is the sort of father Jesus was talking about. I think parent is about the best we can do for the moment. 

I do not expect you to agree with any of this, or even follow the line of argument. It would, however, be great to feel that you possess a heart of love that wants people who are not of your culture and turn of mind to get a chance of hearing the Good News. My guess is that you will need to stick to more 'traditional' translations to receive your spiritual help for some time to come. A pity, but there we are.

I applaud St. David's Cathedral and those responsible for the service for their use of Good As New because it showed their desire to address this day and age and not simply generations past. It is for the Cathedral staff to set your mind at rest on the matter and not myself, but I'm sure they will continue to use a variety of translations and for the most part these will be of the traditional variety. The people of Wales (I believe) have a degree of cultural fluidity the English sometimes have to struggle to obtain. After all, many of us think in two languages to start with.

Thank you for your spirited response. God's grace and peace be with you.

Yours Sincerely,

John Henson.

SUBJECT : HELL

QUESTION A reply  to one of several enquirers who asked the question, "What has happened to 'Hell' in the Good As New translation?" 

ANSWER  Dear Gary, 

thank you for your interest and support. Apologies to those who like 'Hell' (I don't think you are one of them!)- it has been erased. Jesus did not use the word as such either. Lots of different Hebrew hyperbolic images of his have been clobbered together by theologians to produce 'hell', a concept that depends somewhat on the vengeful teaching in the book of Revelation! Often the word Jesus uses is 'hades', which was not hell in the sense used today, but simply the abode of the dead, the 'unliving'. Jesus uses it in a dramatic and poetical way. Neither is there any reason to translate Gehenna as 'hell'. It was the name for the local rubbish tip outside Jerusalem. We think it more colourful to translate it correctly. As to Matt.25:46, the concept of eternal is preserved (just) in the word 'never'. Jesus does not specify the form of punishment, but the one we suggest of the eternal contemplation of your misdeeds with the inability to atone is bad enough- perhaps too bad for the heart of Jesus? If he literally meant 'eternal torture chamber' in a physical sense, then I would have to give up as a Christian. Hitler was not that sadistic! 

John Henson answers more questions.

 SUBJECT - PETER

QUESTION I am frequently asked about our translation of Peter as ‘Rocky’. ‘Rocky’ is the nearest we can get to the feel of the Greek.

ANSWER Why ‘Rocky’ and not ‘Rock’, since Rock is a contemporary name e.g. Rock Hudson? Because the Greek is ‘petros’ and not ‘petra’. ‘Petra’ is the word used of the person in the story Jesus told who built his house on the rock. It is the kind of immovable rock that serves as a foundation. ‘Petros’, on the other hand is the word for a large stone or ‘boulder’. If you put your weight against it, it may well rock, and if it is on the edge of a precipice and you give it a shove it may go over the edge. This is more like the character we know ‘Peter’ to be from our reading of any translation. It was the nickname given to him by Jesus and carries a tinge of irony. (I recall a Rabbi telling me that Christians will never understand Jesus until they understand the Hebrew sense of humour!) If you take part of Matthew’s account of things literally and believe that Peter is the rock on which the Church is built, you should not ignore the second half of Jesus’ statement- and the ‘gates of Hell will not prevail against it’ – Good As New – easier to get the picture – ‘the barriers set up by the wicked will fall down when you’re hurled against them.’ (Have you noticed? Literalists always choose which parts they are going to take literally!) Jesus is describing the Roman catapult, only too familiar to the people of his day. Peter is not a foundation, but a missile. A mighty great boulder that hurled against the Roman empire would undermine its power- a prophesy that was fulfilled!  So the ‘Church’ is not an irremovable or unshakable object, but a moving one, a projectile. If the Church does not move, at very rapid pace, it cannot be the Church.

One of the points about the Good As New translation that scholars who look carefully at the text will gradually come to realise, is that there are many places where we stick closer to the Greek than other translations. I don’t want to supply a list of these. I would rather they found out for themselves!  ‘The Message’ (a superb translation) often wanders much further from the Greek in order to be (successfully) contemporary. Its fundamentalist admirers do not seem to mind, since when it comes to their favourite key texts ‘The Message’ generally toes their line, resulting in slight variations of style – more traditional when fundamentalist theology is being promoted.  

 SUBJECT - The Authority of Jesus

 One of the most hurtful comments I have read about the translation is that John Henson has ‘undermined the authority of Jesus’. Clearly the critic does not know me, nor spoken to any who do. His main grounds are that I do translate the Greek as ‘he spoke as one having authority’ – the critic does not complete the quote, of course, - ‘and not as the scribes’. I think our ‘this man knows what he’s talking about’ is a perfectly acceptable rendering of the Greek and a very good account of the true nature of authority. A pity that critic had not gained a bit of authority by reading the translation more thoroughly and getting a better idea of what he was talking about. Getting to know me personally would be even better. Then he would know that my whole life has been dedicated to keeping Jesus in the centre of the Christian witness, as the supreme authority for belief and practice. One of the most frequent comments from those who have approached the translation with an open mind is “I feel I have been meeting with Jesus for the first time.”

 Maybe the critic is worried that the translation does not follow the orthodox teaching of the Church on the person of Christ as laid down by the Church fathers. He may be surprised to know, others too, that my theology is orthodox Trinitarian, though, as with scripture, I seek to translate it into contemporary terms. I believe God was completely in Jesus. I may unpick that in a different way from others, but that’s where I stand. I believe, however, that those who love Jesus without being Trinitarians have as much right to be considered true Christians as myself and others like me, since the word Trinity was not used by Jesus, indeed does not appear in the scriptures. It is a later theological construct that I happen to accept. But I cherish those who don’t as my sisters and brothers. My task was  to convey the truths of the gospels and early Christian letters in a way that could be grasped by people today. It was not to weave in any particular theology – I think to do that is naughty. But, as I have said elsewhere, I do not believe total impartiality is possible. That’s why we must have lots of translations, in order to keep a check on one another.

SUBJECT  - The book of Revelation

QUESTION one of the most frequent questions I am asked is 'why have we 
dropped the Book of Revelation?' 

ANSWER I enclose a letter I wrote to a friend on the subject.

Dear Gethyn,

Why do I nearly always have to be preaching somewhere else when we have the best preachers at home? I have had glowing accounts of your service last Sunday morning. The 'Christus Victor' metaphor of the atonement (your theme) is an important one in the Christian scriptures, and there is rather more evidence for it than for the idea of 'penal substitution' for which there is very little evidence, if any. I would love to have heard your account.Was it during your sermon or in discussion that you queried our dropping of Revelation from the Good as New translation?

The prime purpose for the translation is evangelical, that is to spread the Good News, especially to those who have been excluded from it by the Church's academic and stuffy approach. So I think I would begin by asking the question, "What sort of impression or impact would the Book of Revelation give of the Good News when handed to the first time enquirer?" At the very least we should admit that for the most part (saving a few carefully selected passages) the work is an enigma, a puzzle, which requires a good deal of unpackaging in order to make sense, with scholars differing widely as to what it is all about. With or without earnest academic activity, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a very different picture of Jesus, and a very different account of his ethics, is to the fore in the work from that of the rest of the Christian scriptures, especially the gospels but also of Paul. 

I suspect that the presence of Revelation in the Canon has had over the centuries as drastic and tragic consequence as the recruitment of the Church by Constantine to be a tool of state power and control. Christians were given an apology for war and famine and distress of all kinds which Revelation seems to portray as part of God's plan, or at least inevitable and unavoidable. The book seems to be have been written by people enduring great suffering, but who instead of being encouraged, as by Jesus, to love and forgive their enemies, are encouraged to see their downfall at the hands of a superior 'power'as their hope of triumph. While we must always sympathize with the demands of victims for justice, the Jesus of the gospels discourages us from seeking vengeance or triumphant vindication. 

More recently the handling of Revelation by amateur sleuths who do not have the tools or desire to interpret it in a more 'Christian' way, has led to a profusion of sects for whom the book is a favourite resource and an happy hunting ground for bizarre prophesies for the future. Let's face it, the book is bizarre to the twentieth century mind. Apocalyptic represents a tiny minority culture which developed for a short while in the inter-testamental period and was not highly regarded by rabbinic Judaism. Revelation seems to me to be a copy of such a work with a Christian overlay. I suspect, as others have done, that the letters to the seven churches were originally a separate work, even possibly from the apostle John, but that they were incorporated into the apocalyptic and doctored with the bits about the stars and candles to make them fit.

Having said all this, several of my friends say they are waiting patiently for my translation of Revelation. I'm not sure I can do it. My purpose is to make the Good News accessible to those of the twenty-first century. It has not been easy to do that with some of the other texts, Hebrews for example. I do miss, and would still regard as scripture (since I repudiate the concept of a Canon) the picture of Jesus patiently knocking at the door- somewhat different from the picture of him on a warhorse. I also miss the picture of the New Jerusalem without a temple and with the gates wide open (religionless Christianity?), and the wiping away of all tears, though I sincerely hope not just for a very limited number of elect!

I believe the work should be preserved and continue to be studied by those with the necessary academic qualifications, who may also from time to time pass on to us new insights they reap from their studies. Have no fears. Champions of Revelation are on the victory side! The Book will last as long as the Church lasts and will appear in most collections of the scriptures long after Good as New has ceased to be even a minority interest for academics. It will continue to be a source of schism, and of dubious value for those wishing to get to the heart of the Christian message. But I have made my protest and take my stand with Martin Luther* on this one. 'Here I stand: I can do no other.' 

Best Wishes,

Keep challenging me. It's the best service you can do for me!

*German Bibles continue to print Luther's warning as a preface to Revelation! The Orthodox Church also holds it to be a work of lesser value.

SUBJECT  - TRANSLATING COSMOLOGY

QUESTION from Leslie Cram,  “How did you go about translating the world view of the New Testament.”

Can I define what I mean by world view? This can be done by describing the everyday life of the people in the New Testament as a social anthropology study giving an account of their world view or cosmology. Many of us already know the cosmologies of Australian aboriginal people, the North West coast Indians of Canada etc. The books and web sites are not hard to find.

New Testament cosmology has three areas of existence, heaven where the divine lives, earth where humans and animals live and the underworld where the dead live.

1 God lives in heaven. God is entirely good. Nothing evil lives in heaven. God has with him creatures created by him, called angels, who are his agents, and the Holy Spirit. The theology of the Hoy Spirit as a “person” of a triune God was worked out after the New Testament was written. Some humans live in heaven such as Elijah. Heaven is a three dimensional place above the earth, Jesus went up to it in his three dimensional resurrected state (Acts 1 : 9). God communicates with the life he has created on the earth but only with humans, never with animals. The forms of interaction initiated by God are

• by action on inanimate object, by setting a new star in the sky (Matt 2 :2), or rending of the veil in the temple at the death of Jesus (Luke 23 : 45)

• by dreams: the wise men were warned in dream (Matt 2 : 12), Peter dreamt of the animals let down in a large blanket (Acts 10 : 9 – 16)

• by angels giving a message, Gabriel visiting Mary (Luke 1 : 26), the angel gave a message to Cornelius (Acts 10 : 1 – 6)

• by angels taking action such as releasing people from gaol (Acts 5 : 19, acts 12 : 7 -10).

• by the holy spirit, the conception of Jesus (Matt 1 : 18), Pentecost (Acts 2 : 1 – 4)

• by speaking, Paul on the Damascus road, (Acts 9 : 7), the Transfiguration (Mark 9 : 7 )

• by moving people from place to place, as Philip was transported after the meeting with the Ethiopian (Acts 8 : 39 -40)

• by becoming human in Jesus. A divine human being has characteristics including being born without a human father, dieing and coming to life again and attracting followers by his personality.


2 Earth is where created life exists. Inanimate objects and animals are neither good nor bad. Humans can be either good or bad. Demons are entirely evil, their place of existence is the earth and they wish to get into humans (not into animals, with the exception of the Gaderene swine, nor having any effect on the inanimate world) causing illness and evil actions. Deformity or illness is also caused by sin, sin by the individuals or by his ancestors, for instance the man who was blind because of his own sin or that of his parents (John 9 : 2). Humans can communicate with demons, Jesus ability to do miracles was explained as his communicating with devils (Luke 11 : 15 - 22).

Humans communicate with God by

• The rituals of the Jewish religion. These do not give an immediate experience of God.

• Ritual prayer, in the temple (Acts 3 : 1) or in ones own room (Matt 6 : 6). Like rituals, prayer does not automatically lead to an immediate interaction with God.

• Bringing God in to give a wanted outcome in the world. The ability to create interaction with God “on demand” is reserved for those of special sanctity. The choice of the apostle to replace Judas by a name picked out of a hat (Acts 1 24 - 26 ), asking god for things in prayer (Matt 6 : 6), miracles by Jesus (Jesus praying while doing miracle Lazarus John 11 : 41), miracles by disciples, the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus (Luke 10 : 9) and by the apostles after his death, (Acts 3 ; 1 – 10, 5 :15 - 16, 12 : 6 -11).

3 The underworld is where humans go after death. The underworld includes underwater; the time that Jesus spent in a state of death is compared to Jonah in the belly of the whale. (Mat 12:40, “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”)

4 Cosmology includes happenings over time. Jesus filled the expectations of people for someone sent by God to improve their condition, as made clear in the Emmaus story (Luke 24 : 21). He created the expectation that he would return after his death leading to a new heaven and new earth when the present cosmology of three places becomes one place and only good exists.

The events in the life of Jesus recorded in the gospels, the events after his death recorded in Acts, and the theology in the letters, all are expressed using this cosmology. The events and the theology are so closely tied to the cosmology that it may be difficult to separate them.

Often the meaning of an event comes from the cosmology and it has to be expressed in that cosmology for the meaning to be clear. Baptism is an example – the coming from the death of going into the underworld of under the water is part of the significance. If taken from the New Testament cosmology baptism has simply the significance of being washed clean. Further from this the walking on water of Jesus in the cosmology of the New Testament signifies his being beyond sinking into the underworld of death. Being born of a virgin, if it is indeed part of the New Testament, has a significance in the stories of births of human/divine heroes of the time of Jesus. Coming alive after death is the central message of some aspects of Christianity and this is a to be expected event in the cosmology of the time.

But Christians need to live in the modern world and it cannot be that to be a Christian one first has to lay aside belief in the world as we know it today. This was eloquently said by Rudolf Bultmann in the 1950s, although Bultmann meant cosmology rather than mythology. The cosmology is the stage and actors, mythology is the plays the actors perform on the stage.

We are therefore bound to ask whether, when we preach the Gospel to-day, we expect our converts to accept not only the Gospel message, but also the mythical view of the world in which it is set. If not, does the New Testament embody a truth which is quite independent of its mythical setting? If it does, theology must undertake the task of stripping the Kerygma from its mythical framework, of "demythologizing" it.

Can Christian preaching expect modern man to accept the mythical view of the world as true! To do so would be both senseless and impossible. It would be senseless, because there is nothing specifically Christian in the mythical view of the world as such. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age. Again, it would be impossible, because no man can adopt a view of the world by his own volition - it is already determined for him by his place in history. Of course such a view is not absolutely unalterable, and the individual may even contribute to its change. But he can do so only when he is faced by a new set of facts so compelling as to make his previous view of the world untenable. He has then no alternative but to modify his view of the world or produce a new one. The discoveries of Copernicus and the atomic theory are instances of this, and so was romanticism, with its discovery that the human subject is richer and more complex than enlightenment or idealism had allowed, and nationalism, with its new realization of the importance of history and the tradition of peoples.” (Bultmann, Rudolf 1953, Kerygma and Myth, London: SPCK. page 3).

You have sometimes translated from the New Testament cosmology into the modern, sometimes used New Testament cosmology. Can I give some examples of your inconsistency? Jesus walking on the water, Matthew 14:25 you translate as “Jesus came walking toward them through the water”, John 6 : 19 you translate “Jesus walking over the water”. Angels are usually translated as one of God’s agents and the words not stressing a non human intervention, as the accounts of angels freeing apostles from prison (Acts 5 :17, acts 12). But some of the agents of God cannot be human, for instance the being that opened the tomb and spoke to Maggie and Maria (Matt 28 : 1 – 7). You regularly translate demon possession as emotional trouble, as in Luke 4 : 31 “confused mental state thought to be caused by an evil spirit.” And you also translate some raising from the dead stories as healing from a state resembling death, the Widow of Nain (Luke 7 : 11) translates “the boy everyone had given up for dead”. But in the raising of Lazarus you go against this by the story making him as dead as in the original Greek. Peter’s bring Gazelle alive again in Acts 9 is after “she had a serious illness and died”.

My feeling is that you translated from New Testament into modern cosmology when it was possible to do so without too much alteration to the text. When translation would have meant too much rewriting you left the New Testament cosmology. I would say you must either translate in all occasions or none.

Would it be better not to translate from the New Testament cosmology into our view of the world today? Jesus, the person being cured, the crowd around all believed that a demon had made a home in the patient and was being expelled when a miracle was performed. To understand the mind of Jesus this needs to be said. Rather than translate from one cosmology to the other one would set out more clearly how the New Testament cosmology differs from today in an introductory article. The New Testament cosmology could then be set out even more clearly in the translation.
 

ANSWER Dear Leslie, I can’t possibly cope with this all at once, but I can put down a few markers. You and I have different types of well-developed minds, and we have noted before that there is some difficulty in getting to understand one another, but I believe if ever we do we will both be very much wiser.

 “New Testament cosmology has…” You mean “The cosmology of the Christian scriptures” Please don’t forget that ‘testament/covenant’ refers to alternative ways of relating to God, not to the first 39 and next 27 books of the Bible. I doubt whether  1st century Christian cosmology is as simple as you suggest. The writers and their readers had a mixed Hebrew/Greek (and Persian) background. By 1st century many Hebrew thinkers would have come to use such terms as ‘heaven’ and ‘hades’ as symbolic/poetic, much as we do today. The Greek Jew Philo had already started to do this a century before Jesus. The belief that the ancient Hebrews assumed a 3-tier universe is probably a bit crude. (That only happened in the Middle Ages) Just as ‘new testament’ and ‘old testament’ concepts co-exist in both Hebrew and Christian writings, so poetic and pedantic have always existed side by side, just as they do today. Some people today believe in angels with wings because that’s the way they are on Christmas cards. (Christmas cards have a lot to answer for!) The angels in the Bible never have wings. (The seraphim were creatures, snakes probably). Angels are God’s messengers always. People dress them up in their minds (some dress themselves up – ministers –  Greek ‘angelos’). People have always dreamed/daydreamed/mused/painted mind-picturtes etc to express their hopes, fears, forebodings. Poetry is not in fashion, nor is imagination (the media does it for us). So in order to be 21st century, no angel wings, a dream becomes a ‘hunch’ (same thing really) and so on. Eusebius in 2nd century recorded the view that a soldier had let Peter out of prison. No problem for him – the soldier was an angel, and ‘agent’ of God. The first Christians probably knew his name. He was executed next morning. Who was Gabriel? A visiting priest or seer probably. But he was an angel. Paul on the Damsacus Road suffered from sunstroke and became delirious. In his delirium he heard Jesus (alias his conscience) . But it was Jesus he heard.

 How did I do it? Not consciously at all. My Oxford degree made me aware (3/4 subconsciously) of the way Bible people (all different) thought and felt, including the way they viewed the world around them. I also believe these people were not so very different from us (or perhaps I should say ‘from me’) when it comes down to it. They had different pictures in their minds and they used different words to describe the same (or similar) emotions and experiences. I suspect a sexual climax felt very much the same then as it does now, likewise the sense of the presence of  God. Only thus can those people speak to us so effectively. But as your mentor, Bultmann, so rightly taught you, there is a need to translate symbols and pictures as well as words. Had Bultmannn lived another fifty years he would have been teaching you the next stage – how to re-mythologize – how to spot God in the pictures and symbols we use today.

 I’m skipping a bit now. Yes, I think you are right, I have not always been consistent. (You should have been more assiduous in your examination of the texts as they appeared – you have had 12 years, like everybody else. I always take on board good suggestions. I have learnt to welcome criticism. It’s one’s best friend. Look how hard I’m having to think now!)

 My plea – there is an inconsistency in scripture – in fact it’s difficult to think of any body of work so inconsistent throughout. One thread is an inconsistant wobbling between the ‘anticipatory-modern’ and the ‘quasi-supersititious’. It is there all the time, even in Jesus himself, though he is very modern.

 Walking on the water? Interesting. No need in ‘Sources Close’ (John) to say ‘walking through the water’ (I nearly translated the Matthew as ‘through the shallows’). The writer of ‘Sources’ twigged what happened  pg. 92 3rd para …..they found they had already reached land’. Distance can be deceptive in the dark.

 Did I fully consciously weigh up my decision in every single verse? Of course not. I had to let my mind race. I was working under pressure, and I believe also inspired – at some points at least. But it will make for fascinating study and a few post graduate degrees I wouldn’t wonder, as well as one or two interesting psycho-analyses of myself.

 Death meant something different for the ancients. For us it means loss of all bodily functions and capacities. For them it meant separation from the world of the living. Was Larry dead in our sense? I don’t know, but I doubt it. I don’t think Jesus thought so either, but he might have doubted whether he could coax Larry out! The dead who appeared at the end of Matthew are another case in point. Those who were refugees among the tombs were thought of as ‘dead’.

 If you could get in Dr Who’s tardis and go to the various locations you would see, I think, very much as my translation describes, bar a detail or two. But you might not see what they saw – the involvement of God – not interventionist, but part and parcel of it all, all the time. That’s the ability we have to rediscover today without being silly about it.