Product Description

This is a fresh translation of the Greek New Testament. The Third Edition has over 1,700 footnotes explaing Hebrew idioms, Jewish customs, giving meanings to Hebrew names, and expanding meanings that are hidden in Greek grammar and words. The Glossary has seventy pages that bring greater understanding to the text and to first century Jewish teachings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #132163 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 440 pages

From the Publisher
"A magnificent work! The only New Testament I've used since I got it." by Sid Roth, President of Messianic Vision. "A translation that everyone should have." by Pastor Karl Strader, Carpenter's Home Church, Lakeland, Fla. Readers' Comments: "Thanks for sending The Power New Testament. What a blessing." "The Glossary is so interesting I could spend all my time there." "The footnotes bring such meaning to verses I had previously read many times."

From the Back Cover
Mark 11:23. Truly I say to you that whoever would say to this mountain, 'You must immediately be removed and you must immediately be cast into the sea,' and would not doubt in his heart but would believe that what he is saying is happening, it shall be to him. 24. Because of this I say to you, you must continually pray for everything, then for whatever you are asking, believe that you will take it, and it will be there for you.

Mark 5:25. And a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years 26. and suffered much under many physicians and spent everything beyond her means and was not helped but rather became worse, 27. when she heard about Jesus, as she came from behind the crowd she touched the fringe of His prayer shawl: 28. for she was saying that "If I could just touch His prayer shawl I will be saved." 29. And immediately the flow of her blood dried and she knew that her body was healed from the plague.

Acts 4:31. And after they made supplication, the place in which they were gathering was shaken, and they were all saturated with the Holy Spirit and they were speaking the Word of God with boldness.

1 Cor 10:13. A trial has not taken you except what is common to mankind: but God is faithful, Who will not permit you to be tested beyond what you are able, and therefore He will then in the test make you able to patiently bear the way out.

Glossary "...Prayer shawl making required Rabbinic training which Paul, Priscilla, and Aquila had. (Acts 18:2,3) The Greek word skenopoioi, translated prayer shawl makers or tent makers, is not found anywhere else in Scripture or secular Greek writing. Perhaps Luke coined the word or possibly skenopoioi was used by Jewish people when speaking of making prayer shawls. Jewish men referred to the prayer shawl as a tent or prayer closet because it was placed over the head to shield the eyes while praying....."

About the Author
Reverend Morford is a hands on full-Gospel minister. He and his wife Jeanie travel, teaching on the Jewish roots of Christianity and on the prophetic. They were both ordained at Christian International of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

Customer Reviews

The most accurate English translation available
You should know that I am prejudiced, since I am the son of the translator. But I wanted to point out characteristics of the book that may help you make a decision on whether or not you should buy this translation.

Why should you buy the Power New Testament? Because it is the closest English translation available to what the church fathers actually wrote. The only way you can get a better understanding of the New Testament is to learn Greek and Hebrew and then research Judaism at the time of Christ.

The Power New Testament is a fresh translation of the most recently discovered complete Greek (Koina) text. All of the major translations have been works of committees, with individuals who bring their own agendas with them when they translate, particularly as relating to dogma and tradition. These preferences of translators lead to inaccuracies that change the original meaning of the text. Later insertions from medieval monks may be included and the original meaning as written to a primarily Jewish audience that made up the first Christians are subtly altered. This most recent translation relies only on the Greek and/or Hebrew text. The names of the Jewish holidays are used when they are mentioned specifically in the Greek text, and rabbis, specifically Rabbi Eliezer Ben Yehuda of Florida, were consulted to make sure that the translations and references to Judaism are accurate. The New Testament was written to the first Christians who were Jews.

Explanations are given in footnotes clarify references made that would have been obvious to first century Christians but have been obfuscated through time. Examples are the reference to the camel and the eye of the needle, and the use of yod and vav. The glossary is 63 pages and along with extensive footnotes puts into context both Greek and Hebrew idioms used in the original text.

My father still gets up every morning and compares pages from the Greek text with the pages of this translation to make sure that there is nothing that has been overlooked (and also to keep up his Greek, which is a difficult language to master and retain). His labor of over twenty years has been to come as close as possible to what was originally written and to help you to understand the idioms of the time to which the writers made reference.

Why would you want to read a version that is not true to the original writings?

Great resource for believers everywhere
I read the reviews on this book and saw the author on Zola Levit's TV program. I love David Stern's version "The Complete Jewish Bible" which is more of a paraphrase than this work, but I found that though this version uses the english renditions instead of the Hebrew names for the characters it is still a very worthwhile purchase. The translation is more literal and done in such a way as being encouraging and very informative. I highly reccomend this translation to both Christians and Messianic Jewish Believers. This book is not titled "Power" New Testament for no reason.
Darrell D. Neet

Decent Translation but Feels a Bit Shaky
I have been looking into the new upsurge in Christian interest in our Jewish roots for many years now, and have found many good products on the market. Comparatively, The Power New Testament ranks as good, but it seems just a little shaky in certain areas. I know that Mr. Morford has spent decades on this project, but it's as if he spent far too much time on some things (like adding opinionated footnotes) giving them a crowded 'overworked' feeling, and too little time on others (like delving into further Jewish research). Maybe I'm too critical since I also own many works by Messianic Jews and Christians whose scholarship is breathtaking. (I suppose I am spoiled.) I'll list my observations of this translation in no particular order.

I love the way Mr. Morford translated the Greek verbs, that is of course the top reason to get this translation. Many of those 'old familiar' verses really pop out when the reader can 'think greek' and feel the dynamic movement and force of the words as they were intended to be read. English is such a static, detached, dry language that we often lose the urgency in most of these passages. This helps to restore that. The dynamic verbs alone makes this translation worth getting as a supplement to your library.

I would not recommend it as your ONLY New Testament, however, because in my opinion it falls a little short of its stated goal. The goal was noble: "to bring a greater understanding of and appreciation for the Jewish roots of Christianity," as the translator writes. However, the majority of what he actually accomplished was a greater understanding and appreciation for the Greek language version of the New Testament. I find the translation just a touch weak on the Jewish roots of Christianity theme, as if Mr. Morford didn't finish researching Judaism before he put the manuscript out to be published.

The Glossary, however, is worth reading all by itself. In it Mr. Morford addresses in mini-treatises many of the serious issues confronting the anti-semetic version of Christianity today.

I give him kudos for translating the word "Law" as "Instruction" or "Torah," since that is what the word 'Law' actually means. This helps a lot to erase the typical Christian fear of "The Law" as some kind of great evil in the world that must be avoided at any cost. (Since when did God write an evil book?)

Kudos also on how the chapters are broken into actual themes, instead of following the old midevil numbering system! (Numbers are included for reference, but do not hinder the reading flow.) Thank you Mr. Morford! This is one of the best points in favor of this book, since grouping the lessons and teachings by subject keeps the flow of reading even and logical.

On the other hand, I don't know if Mr. Morford is aware of the latest linguistic and archaeological research that has confirmed that the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew. He seems to avoid this issue entirely in his Preface, which makes me think that he has not come across this information yet. Thus he treats the Greek as the 'original,' the most common mistake of New Testament translations for the last few centuries. A New Testament that strives to restore the lost Jewishness of the N.T. and yet isn't aware that it was written in Hebrew first strikes me as a little out of the loop.

As other reviewers have commented, he also does not translate the names of Jesus and the Apostles into their original Hebrew within the actual text (although there is a Glossary in the back which does this). Jesus, Paul, Barnabas etc. all remain Romanized, and of course there is no mention of the fact that Yeshua (Jesus) didn't actually have an apostle named 'James' (It was Jacob, or Yakov. 'James' was substituted for Jacob to honor King James, but the name James is in honor of the god 'Janus').

He did get several of the Hebraisms (phrases that mean something different than their literal translation in Hebrew: like 'it rained cats and dogs' would be in English). Many Hebraisms seriously effect the way a scripture can be understood, like for instance when Jesus mentioned the "evil eye." (Mt. 6:23 and Lu. 11:34) Mr. Morford makes mention in a footnote that the "evil" or "dark" eye is an idiom for being stingy and refusing to give to those in need. Thus, Jesus said whomever is not stingy and gives freely to those in need, his whole body will be full of light.

There is however little mention of the Hebrew Festivals that are constantly referred to in the New Testament. My biggest issue with this was the fact that "manger" as translated in the King James (Jesus was born in a "manger") is a word that really means "booth" or "stall", and Mr. Morford went ahead and translated it 'manger' according to tradition. But since the season of Jesus's birth took place in late Autumn, it is almost a given that we should really translate this, "Jesus was born in a Booth," which means during the Festival of Sukkot (Feast of Booths/Tabernacles). During this Festival, every public sleeping or eating place such as an Inn is required by Law to build a temporary dwelling, or a "booth," outside for the customers to eat in. The Booths are in no way filthy and disgusting such as a manger would be, and would be a perfectly fine place to sleep extra guests that there was no room for inside the building. And, of course, the bible says that Jesus took on flesh or 'tabernacled' among us, which of course the Festival of Booths was foreshadowing. Thus the fulfillment of the ancient Feast of Booths in Yeshua taking 'a tent of flesh' wasn't mentioned.

Also I think he relies a little too heavily on Jewish "Oral Tradition" books such as the Talmud, Mishna, Midrash and Zohar. There is a sense that he himself isn't saturated in the study of these works, but he relies on Jews who are, and takes their word for it. There is a little problem with this, since it takes the indwelling Holy Spirit to separate out truth from error as we read through these works, and most Jews are not born-again. Thus, weird myths and bizarre little comments sneak in that I sense are incorrect, yet they are presented as "Jewish" and therefore authoritative. Lest we forget, everything we love that is "Jewish" was given from Heaven on Mt. Sinai and did not originate with man at all. They are not "Jewish" traditions (as in from the Tribe of Judah) but God-traditions from Heaven given to men. And a lot of weird things snuck in later as the Heavenly traditions were being passed along by error-prone human beings. Knowledge of the oral traditions are really the most helpful when interpreting the actions and words of Jesus and his disciples (talmidim) because they grew up with this culture.

Despite this, Mr. Morford makes an excellent point that Paul was probably not a "tentmaker," but a "tallit maker" (Prayer shawl maker) since the word "tent" in Hebrew is often used to refer to the Prayer Shawl (our own personal "tent of meeting" with God.) Major kudos for that observation, even the Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament) by David Stern missed that one. (Stern translates the names of the Apostles and various Hebraisms correctly, however. I recommend getting the two New Testaments together, as they fill out one another's weaknesses.)

My final quibble is the footnotes. Although a lot of them are purely linguistic and helpful, Mr. Morford evidentially accepted a lot of suggestions from readers of the first couple editions, and in many places inserted their comments on various verses as footnotes. Many of these are annoying and preachy, attempting to overlay a teacher's opinion of a verse over the actual verse (most of which I totally disagree with, yet they are presented as fact; a lot of the "preachy" footnotes are recognizably "Churchian" in theology). I think for these footnotes, he should have published a small companion study guide full of his teachings and interpretations, and left them out of the N.T. translation.

One final note: the 6x9" size of the book makes it a little difficult to carry around as a "pocket reader." It's also a full inch thick, making it a somewhat hefty book. (I own the soft cover version.) I recommend 'desktop only.'

Summary: Excellent as an addition to an existing study library for those interested in the Jewish roots of Christianity. Not a stand-alone New Testament. I recommend buying it along with the Complete Jewish Bible : An English Version of the Tanakh (Old Testament) and B'Rit Hadashah (New Testament) by David Stern, or the Jewish New Testament by Stern.