The 'Disguisements' of Jesus

Translator Willis Barnstone prefers the Jesus of sandals, not of high robes.

BY: Interview by Laura Sheahen

Prolific poet and scholar Willis Barnstone has long been fascinated with religious texts. His most recent translation, The New Covenant: Commonly Called the New Testament: The Four Gospels and Apocalypse, reestablishes the canonical gospels as Jewish texts and restores the probable Hebrew or Aramaic name not only to Jesus, but to many other familiar people and places. It also renders many speeches in poetry, as they were originally written.

You've translated an eclectic mix of religious and secular texts. Could you talk a little about your religious background?

I'm the grandchild of Jewish immigrants who came to America in the 1880s. My parents were secular. My stepfamily is Mexican and I was educated at a Quaker boarding school in Pennsylvania. So I'm an eclectic mess.

For some 30 years I've been connected with the Unitarian Church, which my children also attended. Every now and then they asked me to give a talk to replace the minister for a Sunday, which in my case ranged from Mao's classical poetry to St. John of the Cross and the Gnostic meditation. Very Unitarian.

I began translating the Bible after I did a book for Yale called "Poetics of Translation." I had read the Gospels many times in the Greek, and [in that book] I wrote about the 'disguisements' of Jesus' identity through intentional mistranslation.

Such as?

Using, for example, for the same word in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. If the text says "rabbi" in the Greek, it usually came out as "Master, Lord, Sir, or Teacher" [in other translations]. All of which are possible names, but the intention was "rabbi."

There are many new definitions of Jesus out there these days: "Mediterranean peasant," etcetera. Which portrayals seem accurate or appeal to you?

I love the Jesus of poverty, the Jesus who was one with the poor, not too much above them. The Jesus who could be hungry, sick, frightened, and who was scared to death on the cross.

What doesn't attract me is what has been enforced by religious establishments--the Jesus who punishes, the militant Jesus. It's not the statements like "I have come not to bring peace but the sword." It's just the notion that if you are with me and believe, then I love you. If you do not believe, you will die an eternal death of unmitigated pain. And that's true of virtually all religions. It's less true of the Hebrew Bible because the Hebrew Bible was not infused with Platonism and a notion of the eternal.

Belief is an equation of love. Disbelief is punishment. There's virtually no page that does not reveal in some way the proselytizing desire to bring people into the folds of belief, and the consequences--such as the destruction of Jerusalem, etcetera.--that will happen if one doesn't.

Continued on page 2: »

Laura Sheahen is Religion Producer at Beliefnet.

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Related Topics:

Entertainment, Text, Translation, Poetry, Beautiful Literary Way, Gospel, Oral Poet, Proselytizing Desire, Gospel Characters, Jesuss, Koine Greek

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