Every once in a while, an author comes up with a new kind of resource to help us engage differently with the biblical text. Paraphrases such as The Message and that of J. B. Phillips have invigorated the Bible reading of many people. Study Bibles with notes at the bottom are becoming ever more useful, with the ESV Study Bible and the NIV Study Bible now setting the standard for academic rigor. But what if someone combined the two ideas?
A New, Creative Resource
That’s what Daniel Boerger has done with The Interpreted New Testament (Fontes, 2020, 780 pp.) This unique resource is an expanded paraphrase of the New Testament–that is, it is not a translation–combined with commentary and explanatory notes in the text itself (rather than at the bottom of the page). The result is a smoother reading experience than you get with study Bibles, which force you to stop reading the text to scan to the bottom of the page, find the corresponding note, and then scan back up to find your place again. Instead, you can read straight through the page. There are a few footnotes here and there, but they are sparse and contain some information about alternative readings and Greek terms.
Boerger makes clear in his preface that this is “neither a translation nor an ordinary paraphrase because various kinds of information have been added to the text itself–such as background, implied and explanatory information–which is not in the original Greek text” (p. 3). Having been a Bible translator, Boerger wants to be clear that he is not producing another English translation. Rather, he describes the main goal of the INT to be
to enable almost any American adult reader who knows nothing at all about the Bible to be able to quickly and easily gain an in-depth understanding of the entire New Testament–without encountering obscure references, words, customs, and intents of a speaker in the text, or of the original writer, that are not clearly explained. I don’t want any reader to give up reading in frustration because the text is too hard to understand. Nor do I want readers to misinterpret the meaning of a passage because they are unaware of cultural and historical information that clarifies the meaning communicated to the original readers nearly 2000 years ago (p. 2).
How It Works
The body of the text is laid out like a Bible, with typical chapters, verses, and headings. The paraphrase is laid out like regular text with a serif’d font. The symbol ❖ signals the onset of in-line commentary, which is given in a sans-serif italic font to clearly distinguish it from the paraphrase. A “right” arrow then signals the return to the paraphrase.
The following preview of the book of Galatians shows you what this looks like and also gives you a preview of the content.
The Paraphrase and Its Merits
The paraphrase itself is interpretive, as any paraphrase is. Consider Acts 1:8:
But what you should be expecting is that the Holy Spirit will come on you and give you access to his enabling power for ministry. Then you will tell everyone what you know about me—what I’ve done and taught. You will start here in Jerusalem, move out to all of Judea and Samaria, and some of you will even go to remote parts of the world.”
There is an explanatory comment that “the Holy Spirit will come on you” means the same as being baptized in the Holy Spirit. A couple things are worth nothing here. First, the paraphrase is much longer than translations of Acts 1:8, such as “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (ESV). Interpretive elements in the paraphrase include “give you access to his enabling power for ministry” and that “you will be my witnesses” means to “tell everyone what you know about me–what I’ve done and taught.” He also makes a distinction between all the apostles, who will go out to Judea and Samaria, and “some of you” who will go to the remote parts of the world.
Second, the explanatory note claims that the Holy Spirit coming upon the apostles is the same as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, mentioned in v. 5. I think this is correct, and is a helpful note that connects the events together and also helps to connect ch. 1 to ch. 2. It is a small note (only 7 words), but is helpful, and only takes half a second to read because it is in-line with the main text.
The fact about a paraphrase is that no one will agree with all of it. Because it is interpretive, there will be plenty of areas where the reader will disagree with Boerger’s interpretation. So if one were to evaluate the book based on how much one agreed with the paraphrase or commentary, then one would simply be judging the book by how similar one’s own theology is to Boerger’s. I think, then, the book should instead be judged by its creativity and helpfulness.
Boerger is clearly a traditional and conservative Evangelical and his expressed purpose for the book is to help those newer to the Bible to read it and understand it better. He has no academic pretensions here. In my opinion, I think the book is a wonderful tool. If a newer Christian were to read it all the way through, they would gain a wealth of background knowledge that would be tantamount to a light New Testament backgrounds course. The paraphrase is also very easy and even refreshing to read, much like The Living Bible. For all these reasons, I think Boerger’s work is commendable and will be incredibly useful for laymen, students, and pastors.
The Origins of the Book
One of the greatest things about this book is its origins. Boerger worked with his wife in the Solomon Islands for 20 years, translating the New Testament into a local language. One of Boerger’s tasks was to create what is known as a front translation, which was easier for the national translator to translate from into his own language – called the target language. (The front translation avoids using words that have no equivalent in the target language, and takes into account the way the target language works grammatically – making it much easier for the translator to translate word-for-word into the target language.)
To make the front translation, Boerger first had to consult various commentaries and other translation and exegetical resources to be sure he understood what the passage meant. (He gives a bibliography of these resources on pp. 725-733.) The nature of the language he was working in meant that a fairly literal word-for-word translation (from either Greek or English) would have been mostly nonsense or would have conveyed wrong meaning in the target language. He had available to him specialized translation resources that gave suggestions for how to express concepts for which the target language had no words. E.g., there is no equivalent in that language for the English verb “to rule” or noun “ruler,” and the concept was also somewhat foreign to that consensus-oriented culture, so he had to find a way to express that idea naturally and accurately in the target language.
Each day, after working on the front translation for the translation project, he also expressed the meaning of the passage he had been studying in a freely worded expanded paraphrase and also added notes to record the breadth of meaning in the passage. Initially, this was simply to help him remember what he had learned in his exegetical study. But he when he realized that many unchurched Americans would also not clearly understand some traditional English translations, he also tried to avoid using figurative language and Christian jargon so people who know nothing about the Bible could easily understand it.
Aside from using same the information he learned from the exegetical helps for the two different products (i.e. the front translation and the expanded paraphrase), they were totally independent of each other and very different. The front translation was limited to what was clearly expressed in the Scripture text and followed the grammar of the target language, but the expanded paraphrase incorporated much more background and implied and explanatory information that is not explicit in the New Testament text, and it was expressed in an entirely different way following natural English grammar. While the front translation was produced first and was used for the translation project, the expanded paraphrase and its accompanying commentary became the core of The Interpreted New Testament.
I love that this book was not birthed in the academy, but instead came directly from the experience of translating the Bible for those who did not have it in their language. Many people might want to judge the work based on its academic credentials, and many people may not like the idea of a paraphrase, but I think that would miss the entire point of the project.
Read for Meaning and Understanding
In sum, the INT is a creative and useful resource to help people better access the meaning of the New Testament text and to better understand it within its first-century context.
Buy one for yourself and for a friend who might enjoy it and benefit from it.
Available from Fontes Press for $28.95 (paperback) or $43.95 (hardback)
Also available from Amazon, although Amazon is not stocking many books during COVID so the price will vary based on third-party sellers.
