In this new English translation of
St Mark’s Gospel, Malcolm Bishop QC, offers a fresh and dynamic rendition of the earliest written account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Basing his translation on the Greek text of Mark, Bishop brings to the fore the vivid and lively flavour of the original. This involves recapturing the original grammatical tenses in which Mark told his story. Virtually every English translation of the gospels tells the story of Jesus in the past tense. However, writing in Greek, Mark uses multiple tenses to describe all that Jesus said and did. So in Bishop’s translation we get to hear, for the first time in a contemporary translation, the words and deeds of Jesus in the present tense, literally as they happen.
As with his earlier translation of John, Bishop allows us to hear fresh and sometimes startling resonances, in the message of Jesus. His translation also permits us to hear speech in everyday English. This makes for less officious and stodgy speech, and brings instead an urgent sense of immediacy and relevance to Mark’s story about Jesus.
