And Also: I have a good amount of stuff still to read, and have read some about it, but '14 might be a time to look into Eastern faiths. Some accounts, including Pagels, suggest gnostic beliefs were influenced by them -- e.g., the dualistic nature of reality, good/evil etc. Also, interesting article on Obama's faith and practices in today's NYT.
To be clear, the proper title of the volume referenced a few times is A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Text, not as I wrote at least once "The" New New Testament --it is clearly noted that they wish not to assume to provide "the" authoritative volume here. A collection of religious scholars worked with various Christian writings up to the latest date of the orthodox New Testament material (175, which sounds rather late ... I thought II Peter etc. was thought to be written by 135 or so) to form a new volume. But, unlike the originals, they are more open about it not being the final one. So, look for one 4000 CE or so.
I looked at the volume and one thing that stands out is that the font and blocking is quite readable. Often, the text in bibles are small, though by now there are so many versions, you can find ones with all sorts of fonts, including different colors to highlight Jesus' sayings or whatever. One thing I did notice is that the volume does not really have any footnotes. Your standard Bible provides various notes on the translation (an imperfect science) or references to other texts that cover similar ground. Some, including a Catholic Bible I have, provide commentary on the text with their own personal touch. One put out by a conservative publishing company really laid that thick.*
This version only really has introductory summaries of each book with it seems a few random notes. One note reminds us that the well liked "those who sinned throw the first stone" account usually put in John (though some early copies had it in Luke) appears to be a late edition. The story, shall we say, was so popular though, it was inserted into the text. This backstory is interesting as is various possible meanings of the text -- I enjoyed in the past reading commentaries that provided multiple volumes of analysis of biblical books. There is value too in doing this oneself, the "original understanding" not binding on us.
The non-commentary notes do help here too as would references to names and other things that the modern day reader might not understand. So, notes do help. I did not read all the introductory material, so don't know if the editors explained why they chose not to include notes here. For instance, when reading gnostic texts, notes can be particularly helpful. OTOH, even academics don't understand all those opaque documents.
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* The conservative volume was almost amusing in how far it went in a fundamentalist type direction -- e.g., Genesis? Written by Moses ... somewhere in the desert. Of course, II Peter was written by Peter, and each Pauline epistle (with estimated dates included) was written by Paul! The notes also have lots of "information" like Luke being said to have interviewed Mary (hey, it need not be when the book was written -- she would be quite old -- could have stopped by some other time) Source? Well, no, there isn't a list of notes to all of this commentary. It is not even necessary -- she easily could have told someone else what happened. Then, again, some take their commentary seriously.
To be clear, the proper title of the volume referenced a few times is A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Text, not as I wrote at least once "The" New New Testament --it is clearly noted that they wish not to assume to provide "the" authoritative volume here. A collection of religious scholars worked with various Christian writings up to the latest date of the orthodox New Testament material (175, which sounds rather late ... I thought II Peter etc. was thought to be written by 135 or so) to form a new volume. But, unlike the originals, they are more open about it not being the final one. So, look for one 4000 CE or so.
I looked at the volume and one thing that stands out is that the font and blocking is quite readable. Often, the text in bibles are small, though by now there are so many versions, you can find ones with all sorts of fonts, including different colors to highlight Jesus' sayings or whatever. One thing I did notice is that the volume does not really have any footnotes. Your standard Bible provides various notes on the translation (an imperfect science) or references to other texts that cover similar ground. Some, including a Catholic Bible I have, provide commentary on the text with their own personal touch. One put out by a conservative publishing company really laid that thick.*
This version only really has introductory summaries of each book with it seems a few random notes. One note reminds us that the well liked "those who sinned throw the first stone" account usually put in John (though some early copies had it in Luke) appears to be a late edition. The story, shall we say, was so popular though, it was inserted into the text. This backstory is interesting as is various possible meanings of the text -- I enjoyed in the past reading commentaries that provided multiple volumes of analysis of biblical books. There is value too in doing this oneself, the "original understanding" not binding on us.
The non-commentary notes do help here too as would references to names and other things that the modern day reader might not understand. So, notes do help. I did not read all the introductory material, so don't know if the editors explained why they chose not to include notes here. For instance, when reading gnostic texts, notes can be particularly helpful. OTOH, even academics don't understand all those opaque documents.
---
* The conservative volume was almost amusing in how far it went in a fundamentalist type direction -- e.g., Genesis? Written by Moses ... somewhere in the desert. Of course, II Peter was written by Peter, and each Pauline epistle (with estimated dates included) was written by Paul! The notes also have lots of "information" like Luke being said to have interviewed Mary (hey, it need not be when the book was written -- she would be quite old -- could have stopped by some other time) Source? Well, no, there isn't a list of notes to all of this commentary. It is not even necessary -- she easily could have told someone else what happened. Then, again, some take their commentary seriously.
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