An Entirely Different Light?

My Honors class is going through a large part of the New Testament for the next few weeks. The professor has told us to read Acts, most of Romans, I Corinthians 6-7, Ephesians, I Timothy, and Philemon as we study the early church and it's role in the history of Rome. For our text we are using The Unvarnished New Testament translated by Andy Gaus. The description on the back reads: "This new, innovative translation of the New Testament opens the closed doors of preconception and allows the reader to view these important Greek writings in an entirely different light... Most translations of the New Testment are made by committees; they interpret the original text through theological doctrines and dogmas which arose centuries after the books were written... Andy Gaus presents the New Testament as it would have appeared to someone reading the original, unvarnished Greek- as though 2,000 years of Christian history had not occured." So, pretty much, Mr. Gaus taken the original Greek and translated it, just like someone would take the Iliad and translate it into English. He has done this so that years and years of religous thought won't get in the way and persuade the text one way or another. But, even as he has tried to take the religious history away from the bible, God's word still rings loud and clear. It's not the "2,000 years of religious history" that makes the bible true and infallible, it's the author. Although we aren't going to get into any theological debates (yeah, right) and we are reading the text to learn about the history of the early church, I know that God will still use His living word to work in the hearts of those who read it. I'm so thankful that we've been given this assignment... now, if I could only convince my geology teacher to teach us the history of the earth straight from Genesis...