The New Testament

The New Testament by David Bentley Hart is the second edition of his critically acclaimed translation, originally published in 2017. This new edition includes a powerful preface and over a thousand changes to the text. Hart’s purpose remains steadfast: to faithfully render the original Greek texts without the influence of doctrine and theology. His translation aims to awaken readers to the uncanniness often concealed beneath doctrinal layers.

Through his startling translation, characterised by a raw, unfinished quality, Hart unveils a world conceptually distinct from our own. He describes it as a world where the heavens were inhabited by celestial spiritual entities of questionable character, where angels ruled the nations as local gods, and where demons roamed desolate places. It was a cosmos that, for many, was an eternal divine order and, for others, a darkened prison house.

Hart challenges readers to reimagine this world: a God who reigned supreme, appearing in the form of a slave and dying as a criminal, only to then be resurrected and revealed as the Lord of all things.