New Testament: Translated by Ronald Knox
Translated by Ronald A. Knox -- Ronald Knox was already world renowned -- as a detective story writer, the author of ingenious limericks, an Oxford scholar of classical Greek, and the 20th century successor to Cardinal Newman -- when he was asked to undertake a translation into English of the New Testament. This magisterial work was first published in 1950 to almost universal acclaim. "His version is well worth having," said Edmund Wilson in the New Yorker. "To read it may well clear up for us the obscurities of passages which have become part of consciousness without our ever having properly understood them, and by wiping the old lens of the language, revive our interest in the story of the Gospels by enabling us to see it in a more limpid light." Newsweek said, "Knox catches the lush color and tang of the ancient books," and Time agreed that "Knox is a master of scholarship and prose." Even the more professional sources professed their admiration for Ronald Knox's translation. The influential Jerome Biblical Commentary praised it for "its lively style ... his Pauline epistles are masterful. " One distinguished reviewer suggests that "the quiet reader of this new Englishing of the Gospels will find it hard to believe that he is not sitting at the feet of the Evangelists as they recount the wondrous story of man's redemption, for his sole benefit." Explaining how he went about his work, Ronald Knox said, "I translate it onto a typewriter, trying to forget that anybody has ever translated the Bible into English before. It would give only an ugly, piebald effect if one tried to make a hash of the versions other people have done. My aim is to produce a translation in English (not colloquial but literary English) which is current today, and at the same time to avoid words and turns of phrase which were not equally current in the 17th century. The idea is that you want a kind of timeless English. " Which, briefly, is why we have now brought back into print a 20th century classic. It will certainly take its proud place on every scriptural bookshelf.
