PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

Less than two years have passed since the "New Testament in Modern Russian Translation" was published at the Mozhaisk Printing Plant by order of the Dialogue Educational Foundation. This edition was prepared by the Institute for Bible Translation in Zaoksky. It was warmly and approved by readers who love the Word of God, readers of various denominations. The translation was also met with considerable interest by those who were just getting acquainted with the original source of Christian teaching, the most famous part of the Bible, the New Testament. A few months after the publication of "The New Testament in Modern Russian Translation", the entire circulation was sold out, but orders for publication continued to arrive. Encouraged by this, the Institute for Bible Translation in Zaoksky, whose main goal was and remains to promote the introduction of compatriots to the Holy Scriptures, began to prepare a second edition of this Book. Of course, we could not help but think that the translation of the New Testament prepared by the Institute, like any other translation of the Bible, needed to be checked and discussed with readers, and this was the beginning of our preparations for a new edition.

After the first edition, the Institute, along with numerous positive reviews, received valuable constructive suggestions from attentive readers, including theologians and linguists, who prompted us to make the second edition as popular as possible, of course, without compromising the accuracy of the translation. In doing so, we tried to solve such problems as: a thorough revision of the translation we had previously made; improvements, where necessary, stylistic plan and easy-to-read design of the text. Therefore, in the new edition, in comparison with the previous one, there are significantly fewer footnotes (footnotes that had not so much practical as theoretical significance have been removed). The previous letter designation of footnotes in the text has been replaced by an asterisk to the word (expression) to which a note is given at the bottom of the page.

In this edition, in addition to the books of the New Testament, the Institute for Bible Translation publishes its new translation of the Psalter, the very book of the Old Testament that our Lord Jesus Christ loved to read and to which he often referred during His life on earth. Over the centuries, thousands upon thousands of Christians, as well as Jews, have considered the Psalter to be the heart of the Bible, finding in it a source of joy, consolation, and spiritual illumination.

The translation of the Psalter was made from the standard scientific edition of the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart, 1990). A.V. Bolotnikov, I.V. Lobanov, M.V. Opiyar, O.V. Pavlova, S.A. Romashko, V.V. Sergeev took part in the preparation of the translation.

The Institute for Bible Translation offers to the widest range of readers the "New Testament and Psalter in Modern Russian Translation" with due humility and at the same time with confidence that God still has a new light and truth ready to illumine the reader of His holy words. We pray that, with the blessing of the Lord, this translation will serve as a means to that end.

April 25, 2002

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

Encountering any new translation of the books of the Holy Scriptures gives rise to a legitimate question in every serious reader about its necessity, justification, and an equally natural desire to understand what can be expected from new translators. This circumstance dictates the following introductory lines.

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The appearance of Christ in our world marked the beginning of a new era in the life of mankind. God has gone down in history and established a deeply personal relationship with each of us, showing with obvious clarity that He is on our side and is doing everything possible to save us from evil and destruction. All of this manifested itself in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The world was given in Him the maximum possible revelation of God about Himself and about man. This revelation is shocking in its greatness: He Who was seen by people as a simple carpenter who ended his days on a shameful cross, created the whole world. His life did not begin in Bethlehem. No, He is "He Who was, Who is, Who is to come." It's hard to imagine.

And yet all kinds of people have steadily come to believe in this. They discovered that Jesus was the God who lived among them and for them. Soon, people of the new faith began to realize that He lives in themselves and that He has the answer to all their needs and aspirations. This meant that they acquired a new vision of the world, of themselves and of their future, of a new experience of life unknown to them before.

Those who believed in Jesus were eager to share their faith with others, to tell everyone on earth about Him. These first ascetics, among whom were direct witnesses of the events, clothed the life and teaching of Christ Jesus in a bright, well-remembered form. They created the Gospels; in addition, they wrote letters (which became "messages" for us), sang songs, made prayers, and sealed the divine revelation given to them. To a superficial observer, it might seem that everything written about Christ by His first disciples and followers was not organized by anyone or in any way: all this was born more or less arbitrarily. In some fifty years, these texts made up a whole book, which later received the name "New Testament".

In the process of creating and reading, collecting and organizing the recorded materials, the early Christians, who experienced the great saving power of these sacred manuscripts, came to the clear conclusion that all their efforts were guided and guided by Someone Powerful and Omniscient, the Holy Spirit of God Himself. They saw that there was nothing accidental in what they had recorded, that all the documents that made up the New Testament were in a deep internal relationship. Boldly and decisively, the first Christians could and did call the established code "the Word of God."