Notes on the Translation
This vital
but difficult cycle has been published twice before in
English, the first in an edition of 1923 published by Harry
Collison, and the other published in 1950 by the
Anthroposophic Press in New York. These two editions were
based on two different German versions. Both these earlier
translations had many virtues, but the two translators were
inclined to gloss over some of the difficulties in the text,
and their interpretations were often at variance with one
another. It was therefore decided to commission another
translation altogether which would be more literal and more
faithful to Steiner's words as printed in the latest German
edition of 1976 (GA 139). It is this translation by Conrad
Mainzer that has been mainly used for the present edition,
although many changes had to be made in it in order to make
it acceptable to English speaking readers. The result is
therefore a wholly new translation, even when the wording of
one or the other of the earlier translators has been adopted;
and every effort has been made by the editor to make this new
publication worthy of the content of this, the last and most
profound of Steiner's cycles of the four Gospels.
The biblical
quotations may not sound familiar to readers who have always
favored the King James Version, the version used in the two
earlier English translations. For the most part the
translations are those made by Conrad Mainzer from Steiner's
wording, though in a few instances they have been revised to
bring them into conformity with the original Greek. Though
unfamiliar it is hoped they will prove acceptable and more
easily comprehensible than the often archaic language of the
earlier versions.
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