The Pioneers’ New Testament

For more than fifty years now, I have searched for people with whom to explore the Lord’s intentions for his people. Except for a scattered few brief interludes, that search has failed. I had hoped that the dissemination of my New Testament translation might provoke the discussion and contacts needed for greater faithfulness. But without any endorsement or any distributor, that also failed to produce the needed critical evaluation and interchange.

These observations, too, should have been refined by the challenge and counsel of a mutually seeking community of brethren. They have not: and consequently they are fragmentary and mostly untested.

But fifty years is a long time. Only the Lord knows how many years may be left. Certainly not fifty more! So I am beginning to record some thoughts that perhaps someone, someday, will correct, add to, and find a way to offer this message to the Body of Christ. With sadness, I no longer expect to live to see “ordinary folks” like myself privileged to contribute to that Body. Someday, though, the Lord will again make his voice heard and his people will again recognize the glorious message of Pentecost – that he intends to speak to all of us through all of us.

What a beautiful time that will be!

Meanwhile, this is intended to be sort of an explanatory supplement to my New Testament translation. In the introduction to that work, I noted that I had deliberately chosen to avoid standard “Christian vocabulary” in favor of an attempt to use words in ways that would have been familiar to the first readers of the texts. This is an attempt to explain some of those vocabulary choices; to explain grammatical structures that are unfamiliar to the reader of English; and to include miscellaneous other observations that I have found helpful over the years.

Please do not interpret this as any kind of a “doctrinal statement”, or anything but the efforts of one follower of the Lord Jesus Christ to share with other followers (or potential followers) some of the treasures of his Kingdom.

Ruth Martin

For further dialogue, please download the translation notes here. I welcome serious feedback and discussion on these issues!