I am not actually selecting the New Testament for my book of the month, which would be patronizing and bad. What I am doing is selecting a particular translation as a translation of the month, which makes better sense.
If you took any college classes on the Iliad and the Odyssey, the chances are pretty good that you have read Richmond Lattimore’s work. He was a top tier scholar when it came to classical Greek, and near the end of his life he decided to take a run at the New Testament. He was not doing this a biblical scholar, but rather as an expert in the language the New Testament was given in. The result is an engaging and refreshing read. I checked my reading log, and I had read through it previously on three other occasions. Each time it is fresh.
This time the effect was enhanced because Nancy and I, in our morning devotional time, are reading Kenneth Wuest’s translation of the New Testament, with the subtitle being An Expanded Translation. This was a valuable exercise also because Wuest makes you stop and think about stuff. For example, in 1 Tim. 5, when Paul says not to lay hands on an elder hastily, Wuest rendered that as an admonition not to lay hands hastily on an elder who had sinned (in the previous verses), and you were reinstating him. Not sure about that, but it is certainly worth chewing on, and that thought had never occurred to me before. But at the same time, it can be kind of tedious, like reading the Amplified Bible, which reads like the prose was assembled out of Tinker Toys.
Really worth your time.