Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus: Why do your disciples disobey our ancestral tradition by eating with profane hands? "
Now, other modem translators have modernized this passage much more successfully than I have. My heart is not in this kind of rearrangement of the syntax. Still, all the essential meaning is there. But to me it reads much less like Mark than the version which stands in my translation.
It will follow, or should, that since each of the Gospels, and Revelation, is the work of a diferent author with a different style, they should read differently in English. I noted that Revelation seemed to translate itself, and my aim has been to let all of my texts translate themselves with as little interference as possible. But it is not always so easy. To go from Revelation to Matthew is like going from Ruskin to Carlyle. Mark in particular offers problems. Since Mark is, by general if not universal consent, the earliest evangelist, we start with his gospel. Matthew and Luke drew on him extensively, but constantly saw fit to rewrite him after their ownwn manners. He can, as illustrated above, be abrupt and crabbed. Also, the nature of the language itself produces difficulties. There are some terms, such as the various forms of skandalon (see note on Matthew 5.29, page 572), which cannot always be translated in the same way, which really cannot be translated at all, but for which the translator will have to devise some kind of paraphrase which will convey the essential sense.
fl THE FOUR GOSPELS ARE FOLLOWED IN the New Testament by the Acts of the Apostles, which, though far from being a complete account, is the earliest consecutive story of early Christianity that we have. It can be regarded as a continuation of The Gospel According to Luke. This is implied in the opening sentence, addressed, as is the Gospel, to Theophilus; and there is little or no doubt among scholars that the author is the Luke of the Gospel.
Acts begins with the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven and the formation of the church in Jerusalem. From there, Christianity is preached abroad by various ministers. In the early part of the story the dominant figure is Saint Peter. The second half of the work, however, becomes almost exclusively the tale of Saint Pauclass="underline" his missions to the Greek cities of the Roman Empire (the Gentiles), the oppositions he encountered, his arrest in Jerusalem, and his arrival in Rome. Not long after that arrival, Luke somewhat abruptly (as it seems to me) ends his story. Paul spent some time as a prisoner in Rome. He is usually thought to have been martyred during the persecutions of Christians when Nero was Emperor, perhaps in a.d. 64, or on an individual charge before that, but the evidence is not conclusive.
Acts is usually dated with and immediately after Luke, about a.d. 85. That would put it considerably later than Paul's own writings. Still, it is useful to read it first, so as to have a more or less continuous background for Paul's letters.
These, the Epistles of Paul as they are canonically called, are his letters to various Christian communities or churches. They sometimes address themselves to particular problems, but also set forth, again and again, Paul's own theological doctrines and his principles for Christian behavior. There are also four letters to individuals.
For the letters of Paul I have followed a traditional order, but a better sense of time would be gained by reading them in some such order as this: First, letters written before the journey to Rome: First and Second Thessalo- nians, Galatians, First and Second Corinthians, Romans; and then the letters from Rome: Colossians (with Philemon, to a member of that community), Ephesians, and Philippians.
The two letters to Timothy and the one to Titus are commonly grouped together and known as the Pastoral Letters. Timothy and Titus are well known as associates of Paul, and the letters bear his characteristic self- identification at the beginning. But their authenticity has been seriously questioned. The style and language differ in places from what is characteristic of Paul's other writing, while the three do resemble one another in those respects. First Timothy and Titus speak of the institution of bishops and elders, which seems to point to a later stage in the development of the Church.
The Letter to the Hebrews is included with the letters of Paul, but the name of Paul does not appear in the text. There have been many speculations about date and authorship, but no final answer (except, perhaps, that it is not by Paul).
Next comes the group known as The General Letters (or Catholic Epistles, Epistoloi Katholikoi). The name signifies that they are addressed (most of them at least) to the whole Christian community rather than to separate churches, as Paul's letters were. The Letter of fames is believed by some to be the work of James the brother of Jesus Christ, one of the chief men in the original church in Jerusalem. The First Letter of Peter is often credited to the great apostle himself. Not so The Second Letter of Peter, which has close afnities with The Letter of Jude.
This, in tum, may just possibly be from the hand of the Jude (Judah, Judas) who was also a brother of Jesus Christ. As for the three letters ascribed to John, the second two are brief real letters apparently by the same writer. The First Letter of John, though it, too, may be by the same author, is quite different. It is a tract or homily, which shows strong resemblances to the Fourth Gospel, and is thought by some to be the work of the same John. Not one of these attributions can be called certain.
In general, I have translated Acts and Letters as a companion piece to The Four Gospels, following the same principle of trying to let the authors of the Greek speak for themselves in English. In the case of Saint Paul, that has not always been so easy.
I have written some simple notes, to explain my translations or give alternative interpretations. Without competence to comment on the manuscript tradition, I have simply followed the text of Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek (New York: Macmillan, 1957). The rare exceptions have been noted. Words enclosed in square brackets are of doubtful authenticity. I have also regularly consulted The Pelican Gospel Commentaries, namely, D. E. Nineham, Saint Mark; J. C. Fenton, Saint Matthew-, G. B. Caird, Saint Luke; and John Marsh, Saint John.
I have also made far greater use of the great dictionary which can be cited, briefly, as W. F. ^mdt and F. W. Gingrich (and now F. W. Danker), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd edition (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1958).
It is a pleasure to record my obligations and thanks: to my publishers; to Alice Lattimore for help in preparing the manuscript; to Frederick Morgan for recommending publication, and to the memory of Fred Wieck, the earliest editor of my poems and translations.