A New New Testament: A Bible for the 21st Century Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts

It's books like this that leave readers wanting more. Much, much, much, more.

This book seems a little confused about its goals (is it a challenge to traditional theology? A new sort of history? Something else?), but the general idea seems to be to show the sort of thinking that was going on in the early Christian church. Such a book must be graded on three factors: the books it includes, the quality of the translations, and the material surrounding the translations.

Start with the translations, since we can be most objective here. For starters, the translation of the canonical New Testament books is not the New Revised Standard Version; it's the Open English Bible. Frankly, that strikes me as a "FAIL!" right there. The NRSV is widely show more acknowledged to be the best scholarly Bible now available in English. The failure to use it seems to indicate some sort of genuine problem.

The Open Bible doesn't even have footnotes, and while Bible readers generally will skip the footnotes, they really belong in there.

Of course, the translations of the other books could be better. I decided to check that. The easiest item to check was the [sayings] Gospel of Thomas, since I have three other translations in my library. It's worth comparing two of these. The first of these is from A New New Testament. It's logion 1:

And he said, "Whoever finds the meaning of these saying will not experience death."

And here is the translation given by Bruce M. Metzger for Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum:

And he said: He who finds the explanation (ερμηνια) of these words will not taste death.

One may disagree with the inclusiveness, or lack of same, and the renderings of these translations. But note the Greek word in the Metzger translation. It's there because the Gospel of Thomas is in Coptic, but interspersed with Greek words. This is surely significant -- and the New New Testament doesn't even tell us where it happens. This consistent lack of footnotes is a real problem.

What about the selection of books? Early Christianity was noteworthy for the tremendous number of heretics floating around -- Gnostics, Marcionites, just plain wackos; later, there were the Arians and the Monophysites. Some of these groups -- the Gnostics in particular -- produced some very strange writings. (The book tries to plaster over the Gnostics, and in one sense, it may be right; there may not have been such a sect. But the crazy books were real.)

Most of the crazier items have been omitted. The Gospel of Thomas has some Gnostic tinges, but nothing like their other works. The Acts of Paul and Thecla is mostly orthodox except for its praise of a female preacher. The Odes of Solomon have at least some resemblance to genuine Christian thought.

But where are I Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Letter of Barnabas? These books were actually considered to be canonical by some early orthodox Christians; Eusebius mentions discussions over their inclusion, and two of the three oldest New Testaments in existence, the Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Alexandrinus, include portions of them. Any claim to showing the range of early Christian thought which omits these documents goes out the window.

Finally, there is the issue of reader helps. The books have introductions, which is good. But I've already mentioned the lack of footnotes. And how about some notation of parallels? One can look up parallels between the canonical gospels in any decent synopsis. But how is a reader to know if a statement in the Gospel of Truth parallels the canonical gospels, or Thomas, or anything else?

Sure, a lot of people who know the Bible well will be able to recognize those parallels. But those who know the Bible well are already mostly Christian, and grew up in the tradition that recognized 27 particular New Testament books. If people are to adopt a new Biblical canon, they surely need information that isn't found here.

And what a ridiculous list of recommended readings. How can anyone talk about the Gospel of John without mentioning C. H. Dodd? And must the introduction talk down to the reader by answering such elementary questions?

This review sounds relentlessly negative. I should stress that I think there is value in the idea here. Readers deserve access to the materials surrounding the formation of the Christian church. This book makes an attempt to supply that. But I'd consider it, at best, a first draft. When this is done right, it will have better translations -- with footnotes and cross-references. It will include I Clement and Hermas and probably a few other things. And it will have reader helps that actually help.

Let's hope it happens soon. show less

I don't like this book, and this is one of the few books that I don't recommend. The New New Testament includes the regular New Testament books, but interspaced between them are selected additions from the first through third Christian century texts.
These texts, originally left out of the official books of the New Testament, are somewhat interesting. However, the lure of using them to alter or contest the Christian message is just too great. Where I do not disapprove of them being published on their own, to be interleaved with the New Testament canon can lead to confusion, especially among new Christians, who are not able to distinguish these messages from the Gospels, Acts, Letters and Revelations.
The various authors of this New New show more Testament, especially Hal Taussig, propose that there was no real Gnostic heresy, and seems to think that at one time there was an official Gnostic Church as a separate branch of Christianity stomped down by Orthodox and Roman Catholic clerics. What Gnostic thinking does is search for “special knowledge” in Biblical and religious scriptures that gives them personally a leg up in salvation.
Many forms of Gnosticism are still with us today. Those who search for bizarre Bible Codes of secret messages, or who use odd and eccentric mathematics to predict the end of times, are people who seek to find hidden meaning unknown to normal people. It is a form of “One Upmanship” over the unthinking herds. They seek to transform the physical world for a spiritual world, based on personal enlightenment that comes from secret or mystical research and knowledge. In a way, Simon the Magician (Act 8:9-24) was one of these early gnostics. Although he wanted to pay for the ability to use Christianity as a form of magic and self aggrandizement, what he was willing to pay for with cash is what many Gnostics desire to do with vain research for secret meanings.
While these ancient writings in the New New Testament are from people new to Christianity, they are also somewhat contaminated. These writings, many partial or incomplete, are from people who have brought with them into their new Christian understanding some of their spiritual and religious teachings from pagan religions and animistic beliefs. They are confusing to Christians today who don’t recognize the rather obvious references to Issus worship, Mithratic beliefs, Egyptian and Greek mythology or Eastern spiritualism there.
What would be an interesting project would be to add these texts to the scriptural writings of these ancient religions, and see how some of them considered Christianity an outgrowth branch or cult of their own pagan beliefs and teachings. Does the Thunderer deserve to be placed next to the Gospels? I don’t think so. But it would be rather more interesting to place the text next to some of the classic works on Egyptian and Greek goddess worship, and see how this text is perhaps more closely aligned with Issus or Artemis scriptures than it is with Christianity.
For those who want to use these writings to find hidden meanings, mystical codes and secret personal messages from God, go ahead. These writings are, I think, made for this. And if you are the sort of Christian who looks for special meanings in the Bible for selecting numbers for lottery tickets, then this also may be a treasure trove for you. And if you are anti-Christian, and don’t believe the Christian message, this is also a good resource for taunting and confusing your neighbor Christians.
But for new Christians, and for normal Christians, this is not a good book to read. It isn’t bad, it is just confusing and subtle. But it pulls away from the plain message of redemption and salvation, into coded messages and promises of hidden meanings. Christianity and the Christian message are not so dark and smokey. show less

How you respond to A New New Testament largely depends on how you approach it. If you are intrigued by the editors' desire to place the writings of the New Testament into history alongside perhaps contemporary documents, then this book is welcome news! And my guess is that for many people, titles such as the Odes of Solomon or The Thunder will be completely new. Others will welcome owning familiar Nag Hammadi texts in a new and tastefully bound package. The vision of the editors certainly caught my imagination. Their project did make me begin to see each gospel and epistle of the New Testament as a piece of writing made in time and alongside many other pieces of literature. I found myself nodding along as the introduction challenged me show more to read the New Testament from the outside in. Nevertheless, there are problems with the texts chosen to accompany the usual set (also reproduced from the Open English Bible.) Most are dated early by the editors. The claim is that they are contemporaries of canonical texts. But subsequent research suggests again and again a later date. Take the Gospel of Mary, for example. Harvard's Karen King wants to date it between 80 and 180 CE. Yet other scholars such as April DeConick disagree. "The Gospel of Mary is a distinctively Valentinian text," she says, and she fixes the date as mid-second century. Furthermore, don't expect the sort of material from these extras that you find in the New Testament. Where Jesus is supposed to make an appearance, it is usually as a metaphor such as "I am the beginning and the end." This Jesus does not eat fish with incredulous fishermen, or comment directly on the political injustices of his day. The divine voice emanating from these writings is timeless, interior, mystical, and largely feminine. In other words, exactly the sort of thing you would expect from editors like King, Crossan, and Taussig. And though naming this book the new New Testament may very well have been a clever marketing ploy on the part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the embrace of this book as a new scripture claims a canonicity that, to my mind, crosses the line. So I welcome the idea of putting the books of the New Testament in context, but I would like to see more critical scholarship from all backgrounds assembled to do it. show less

I'll begin this review with a disclaimer of sorts. I am a confessional Christian and pastor in the Reformed tradition, affirming the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort at my ordination as standards of orthodox belief. Which means that I believe the books of the Old and New Testament are complete and sufficient for faith and life. Which means that I approach a text such as this book, A New New Testament with a good deal of skepticism.

The premise is that the books which comprise the Bible are not really adequate for faith in the 21st century, and beyond. Further, it is believed that the canon as compiled excluded texts that should have merited inclusion, not to mention ancient texts discovered in the past show more two centuries, which merit serious consideration. That is the premise of a New New Testament, and I believe it is a faulty one, failing on the grounds that it does not find what has been compiled as the Bible to be sufficient.

I have a good working knowledge of the New Testament and I read a sampling of the documents added to the New New Testament, and I found them wanting. The Gospel of Mary. The Gospel of Truth. The Secret Revelation of John. The Gospel of Thomas. None of these are Christocentric. None of these exalt Christ. None of them reveal the shining brilliance of God's plan of salvation, which quite frankly permeates the Old Testament as well as the New. Would the martyrs Jan Hus, John Wycliffe or Guido de Bres stake their life on this "theology?" I think not.

Save your time. Save your money. Plumb the riches of God's revealed word in the canonical Old and New Testaments. show less

I'm really enjoying this text more now that I'm actually into reading it and not just the prefatory material. The voting mechanism for inclusion criteria initially seemed haphazard, but the further explanations in the introductions to each work gave a bit more of a feel for how they reached a consensus on which 'new' texts to include, and why. Each introduction also include a bit on 'Why should this text matter to a 21st century reader', which revealed a little more of the 'why?' of inclusion. The careful arrangement of the texts to put genres and schools of authorship together was effective, though some works (like the Odes of Solomon) are deliberately split up and placed through the work. Some of the most interesting works to me were show more the more 'liturgical' pieces like prayers and hymns that showed how some early Christian communities may have worshipped. Though I'd read some of these works before individually, it is nice to have them put in a volume alongside the traditional new testament. show less

Have you heard of The Gospel of Mary or The Gospel of Thomas? Are you familiar with these "alternative" gospels but still not quite sure what to make of them? Do you wonder how they fit in with or compare to the traditional books of The New Testament?

If so, A New New Testament (Hal Taussig, ed.) is designed for you. A New New Testament (ANNT) combines the traditional 27 books of The New Testament with ten of the more than 75 previously unknown documents from the early (first- and second-century) Christ movements "discovered" over the past 160 years. Best of all, it places the more recent discoveries within the context of the more familiar texts to allow the reader to compare, contrast, and prayerfully examine these books together. There show more are gospels, teachings, prayers, and prophecies. The Gospel of Thomas is grouped with The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The Gospel of Mary and The Gospel of Truth are grouped with The Gospel of John. The Prayer of the Apostle Paul is grouped with Paul's familiar Letters (to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, etc.). The Secret Revelation of John is paired with The Revelation to John. The four books of beautiful worship songs, The Odes of Solomon, are used to introduce each of the major sections.

In case you are wondering how the ten books were chosen, Taussig, Crossan and 17 other spiritual leaders (described as "bishops, authors, rabbis, and scholars") met to discuss and deliberate. A New New Testament is the result of their work.

I must acknowledge that I only recently received this book and have yet to delve into all 600 pages. But I was excited enough by the Introductory sections, the Commentary at the end, and the selected portions that I DID read, that I wanted to tell other people about it. I imagine this book sparking a new interest in "Bible Study" (there's even a Study Guide at the end).

[I wrote this review for my church newsletter and modified it slightly for LT & Early Reviewers, thus the tone is a bit different from my typical review style. —LD]

Update 8/29/14: Now that I've finished reading the whole of ANNT, cover-to-cover, I'll say that I appreciated the format, the reorganization of the books, as well as the introductions to the "new" books. The only thing I had problems with was the "Open English Bible" translation of the traditional New Testament books . . . definitely the most lifeless version of the NT I've ever read . . . and the fact that the "open" writing process resulted in the insertion of the word "abortion" into the text (in reference to Paul's "untimely birth") merely illustrates what was wrong with it. In the future, if I use this text for a Bible Study, I will consult other versions of the traditional NT and use this only for the "new" books (which BTW are available elsewhere). SO, I'm still positive about this book as an introduction to these "new" books, but less positive about the work as a whole. show less

If you believe that the four traditional gospels--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--are the only true gospels, "A New New Testament," edited by Hal Taussig is probably not for you. If you think the King James version is beautiful, easy to read, and easily understood, then this book is probably not for you.

But, if you are open to the possibility that there are other gospels that have validity, this book may well be for you. And if you would rather read these ancient texts without the language getting in the way, this book is definitely for you. It has the clearest versions of the gospels that I've ever read and the same for the "new" gospels.

You don't have to be a believer to appreciate this book. (Full disclosure: I was raised a show more Christian, but no longer believe in Christianity. I do believe that much of what it teaches--love your fellow man, etc.--is a good way to live and I have a belief in a supreme being and am actively trying to understand said being.) Anyone with an open mind who is interested in the subject and hasn't had much exposure to the additional gospels will likely find this book engrossing.

The subtitles of this volume are: A BIBLE FOR THETWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, and Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts. There's lots of commentary throughout, interesting, intelligent commentary. Biblical scholars may well have different views than I do, but for a non-biblical scholar this is a book worth reading. show less