The restored New Testament A new translation with commentary, including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas

Barnstone (Indiana Univ.), a distinguished author and notable translator, has composed a very elegant and aesthetically pleasing translation of a selection of early Christian works. The problems arise when one moves beyond the translation itself and examines the notes and the arrangement of the texts. First, although it carries many of the trappings of modern scholarship, this work is largely uninformed with respect to recent research, especially as it pertains to new studies of the semantic domain of certain early Christian terms. Second, Barnstone artificially exchanges textual proper names with ancient Hebrew ones, even when there is no historical or textual support. He is attempting to make the texts sound more "Jewish," as if "Jewish" is simply a linguistic construct. Third, he inconsistently changes the order of the texts and includes three noncanonical works: the Gospels of Thomas, Judas, and Mary Magdalene. His dating of Thomas is unconvincing, and his interpretation of the Gospel of Judas has already been discredited. Fourth, he fails to justify the translation of a largely prose corpus with English verse. The translation is excellent and can be highly recommended; the apparatus is idiosyncratic, theologically driven, and not recommended. Summing Up: Recommended. With reservations. Lower-level undergraduates through faculty/researchers; general readers. J. R. Asher Georgetown College

In an achievement remarkable by almost any standard, and surely one of the events of the year in publishing, renowned poet and scholar Barnstone has created a new and lavish translation-almost transformation-of the canonical and noncanonical books associated with the New Testament. In part a continuation of his work in The New Covenant, Commonly Called the New Testament (2002) and The Other Bible (2005), and in many ways the completion of the pioneering efforts of other modern translators like Robert Alter, Reynolds Price, and Richmond Lattimore, The Restored New Testament offers a completely new version of familiar and unfamiliar texts, restoring the likely Hebrew forms of names, and strongly emphasizing the poetic and almost incantatory passages that have been obscured within the New Testament. Barnstone also substantially reorders the traditional arrangement of books for reasons he ably expounds in an extended and learned yet accessible preface. The high bar Barnstone has set for himself is the creation of an English-language Scripture that will move poets much as the 1611 King James Version moved Milton and Blake. Only time will tell if Barnstone has achieved his goal, but his work is fascinating, invigorating, and often beautiful. Essential. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.