A New New Testament

Revised version of the 2007 bestseller now on sale

When it was published in 2007 the Danish Bible Society’s new modern, idiomatic translation of the New Testament, entitled The New Agreement, was an instant bestseller. To date it has sold over 27,000 copies. Now it has been re-published with over 1,500 revisions. Among the changes are the following (translated from the Danish):

 

Blessed are the meek             Fortunate are

                                            the modest
Repent                                  Change your life
Glorify                                   Show power
God’s mercy                          God’s love/gifts
Rise from the dead                 Become living again

 

The internet connection gathers pace. Not only is The New Agreement now available via Facebook and Twitter under “A verse a day”; a number of its revisions in fact owe their existence to search machines. According to a recent survey, when Danes want to find out something about religion 56% of them turn to Google. And there, for example, when googling in Danish the words for ‘sin/sinner’ (synd/synder) they are confronted with a solidly irreligious usage linked to the environment, child education, eating, or committing a foul that results in a penalty kick to the opposition. The first link that is remotely religious is President Berlusconi’s rejection of all charges against him but an admission that he is “a sinner”!

‘Sin’ is out
Thus, since ‘sin’ is no longer in current usage – not even in the average pulpit nowadays – the translation of the condition for baptism by John the Baptist in Matt. 3:6 “they confessed their sin” has become: “they told everything that they had done wrong.”

 

This makes sense to modern Danes, who find ‘sin’ old-fashioned and cumbersome. A ‘sinful’ person is now ‘one who does not live as God wants’. The assumption by the editorial committee is that modern Danes do not understand the religious codes behind such words as ‘mercy’ and ‘repentance’, and the new version helps them into the religious world with recognizable and meaningful words.

 

But there are also difficult compromises to be made. The word ‘Israel’ appears only three times in The New Agreement, the argument being that the Israel of old differed radically from the national state of today.

 

Picture: the Danish Bible Society

 

By: Edward Broadbridge

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