N. T. “Tom” Wright has just released another paradigm-shifting book suggesting a new, more scriptural way of understanding the atonement, The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion. Wright delves deeply into how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus accomplish our salvation.
A Re-translation, Chapter 2
In most of the previous posts, I’ve offered a revised or annotated translation of the text. I thought it would be interesting — and perhaps even helpful — to accumulate these into a single text.
Unlike the earlier translations, I’ll not show the changes in brackets except where I’m not just translating but also explaining outside the text.
And I hasten to add that this is my own translation, based on my understanding of Wright but not at all the same as his own translation The Kingdom New Testament (which can be bought at Amazon).
Romans 2
1 Therefore you are without excuse, whoever you are, when you judge someone else. For on whatever grounds you judge another, you condemn yourself, because you who judge practice the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment is in accordance with the truth about God against those who practice such things. 3 And do you think, whoever you are, when you judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you have contempt for the wealth of his kindness, forbearance, and patience, and yet do not know that God’s kindness leads you to repentance? 5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourselves in the day of wrath, when God’s covenant-faithful judgment is revealed!
6 He will reward each one according to his works: 7 eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality, 8 but wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition and do not obey the truth about God but follow covenant unfaithfulness. 9 There will be affliction and distress on everyone who does evil, on the Jew first and also the Greek, 10 but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, for the Jew first and also the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God.
12 For all who have sinned apart from the Torah will also perish apart from the Torah, and all who have sinned under the Torah will be judged by the Torah.
13 For it is not the hearers of the Torah who are covenant faithful before God, but the doers of the Torah who will be declared faithful to the covenants. 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the Torah, by nature do what the Torah requires, they are a Torah to themselves, even though they do not have the Torah. 15 They show that the work of the Torah is written on their hearts [by the Spirit, as promised by Jeremiah in the Messianic Age], while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them 16 on the Judgment Day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by King Jesus.
17 But if you call yourself a Jew and rely on the Torah and boast in God 18 and know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the Torah; 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the Torah the embodiment of knowledge and truth about God — 21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the Torah dishonor God by breaking the Torah. 24 For, as it is written, “The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of the Jews.”
25 For circumcision, as the physical mark of a Jew, indeed is of value if you obey the Torah, but if you break the Torah, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision of the heart under Deu 10:16 and 30:6.
26 So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the Torah, will not his physical uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision of the heart? 27 Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the Torah will condemn you who have the written Torah and circumcision but break the Torah.
28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter of the Torah, and his praise is not from man but from God.
