J. B. Phillips New Testament in Modern English

This review is of The New Testament in Modern English translated by J. B. Phillips. It is the 1966 Sixteenth Printing and includes a forward by the translator. Phillips does not use any form of God's name either Jehovah or Yahweh in the main text. There is one place it is found at Revelation 19:1, 3, 4, 6 as "Alleluia" which means Praise Jah, the shortened form of Jehovah. For those that are interested Phillips translates John 1:1 as "was with God and was God," also this verse as a paraphrase has a rendering a little different then most other translations. At John 8:58 Phillips translates "before there was an Abraham, I AM!" And lastly parts of Philipians 2:5-7 translates as "For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God's equal". It's also interesting to note what English words Phillips used in certain instances. At Matthew 24:3 Phillips chooses 'coming' for the Greek word parousia instead of presence. Another word that sometimes can be confusing is the translator's use of hell. In this case Phillips uses either 'death' or 'the grave' for hades, this was quite refreshing. For Gehenna he translates 'rubbish heap' or 'destruction' except at James 3:6 where he writes 'blazing hell'. Cross or stake from the Greek words stauros and xylon he ignores the original meaning of these words and uses 'cross' everywhere except at Galatians 3:13 where he uses 'tree'. In the first occurrence of the Greek word ma'goi he clearly identifies who these men were by correctly calling them 'astrologers' but then reverts to 'wise men'. This is a modern paraphrase translation but Phillips does have a certain philosophy that might serve as a warning. On page 'vi' of his forward he writes, "Paul, for instance, writing in haste and urgency to some of his wayward and difficult Christians, was not tremendously concerned about dotting the i's and crossing the t's of his message. I doubt very much whether he was concerned about being completely consistent with what he had already written." Phillips goes on to say that there is no point to "study his writing microscopically" to try to deduce hidden meanings but he may with this philosophy of translating crossed to the point of not always accurately transmitting the meaning of the Greek words that the writers of the Christian Greek Scriptures wrote or possibly being inconsistent with the use of English words so that a reader may not realize the same Greek word has been translated in numerous ways into English. This can lead to confusion on what the original Greek means. This is not to say words don't need some change depending on context and usage when translating to English but since there is no notification through footnotes and it is a paraphrase translation it is very easy to change or corrupt the original meaning without the reader knowing. Let the reader use discernment. Phillips writes that a translator must "not be driven by the bogey of consistency" and then highlights some areas where he feels obligated to bridge the gap to our modern world but in altering the text to fit his opinion on what a person should read he may be substituting his own ideas for what is written. Once again it must be pointed out that this wouldn't be so bad if there were a mechanism such as footnotes to highlight these changes, there is none though, so one could be left guessing at familiar passages that have altered meanings. It seems to be that Phillips although a clever and intelligent translator has a certain attitude toward the Holy Bible that he can be the arbitrator of what is correct and what is not or what is important today and what is not. As an example of this you may notice the one footnote he has at 1 Corinthians 14:22 where he changes the English to the exact opposite of the Greek text, now he does make this known, but there is the subtleness in that he says maybe Paul meant to write the opposite of what he wrote or maybe a copyist made an error. The rub in this thinking is that it easily allows for the thought that the Bible is just a book by men, and can be altered by another man. This criticism is not to completely detract from this translation but to serve as a warning of how much power a translator has to shape his work whether his bias is out in the open or affects his work in more subtle ways. Over all its an interesting modern paraphrase translation with some refreshing and accurate wordplay but also some bias in transmitting the Greek to English.

J.B. Phillips New Testament Bible is alive in a way I haven’t experienced the scriptures - I highly recommend you try this translation of the Living Word ~

Great.

Bought as a present for my wife who loves it.

Still the best paraphrase of the New Testament in the English language, in my opinion, superior to others. Phillips has a knack for getting the sense of something concisely. And with this material, in a paraphrase this is a delight.

I couldn't do without it!. Its like looking into a very clean mirror!. Strongly and very highly recommended!. Enjoy!!!!. There's nothing like it........all the other versions are pale in comparison!!!

Plain and simple but so powerful. The Word hasn't lost anything in clarity through this translation. It is beautifully written.