CNT - 1989
Cassirer New Testament
NewCovenant
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It was translated by Heinz W. Cassirer, a Jewish philosopherwho had not read any part of the Bible before he was forty-nine years old.The experience of discovering these texts was so great that he spent thenext twenty-one years studying them. This translation is the result ofthe need for personal clarity and the meaning of the New Testament texts.

He started work on the letters of Paul in 1957. Not until1972 did he feel prepared to translate the New Testament in its entirety.He aimed for clarity that would be sensitive to every inflection of theoriginal Greek. His style is probing rather than a watering down. Althoughhe did not want his work to be a paraphrase, he did draw out a meaningwith greater spiritual accuracy, if warranted.

The Gospel of John -- in particular chapters 7 and 8 --was a stumbling-block for a long time. The decision to translate the NewTestament came only when he was satisfied that the passages that had longfueled anti-Semitic reactions had been disastrously distorted and misinterpretedover the centuries and were not in themselves anti-Semitic. He later advocatedits essentially Jewish character.

Old Testament quotations are in bolder typeface. Referencesare at the bottom of pages. Many of these were found in the Greek New Testamenttexts and Old Testament texts that he used.

He did not care to have his translation published in hislifetime. His widow provided much assistance to the work before and afterhis death.

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (1989)

[Tyndale House, Cambridge, UnitedKingdom]

John1: 1 - 3

It was the Word that was at the very beginning; and theWord was by the side of God, and the Word was the very same as God. Itwas he who at the beginning was by the side of God. All things came intobeing through him, and there was nothing that came into being apart fromhim.

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