The New Testament in Scots

This “majestic work of scholarship” by the renowned classicist is “a notable contribution to [Scottish] literary and linguistic heritage” (The Times, London).

The Greek scholar William Lorimer spent the last ten years of his life translating the New Testament into the native language of Scotland. It was a passion project that would become his posthumous masterwork. Translated directly from original Greek sources, each Gospel is written in a different form of Scots to match the different forms of Greek used by the various apostles and scribes, and the vigor and immediacy of the language is everywhere apparent.

Transcribed, edited and published by his son Robin Lorimer, this scholarly and dramatically fresh reading of an already familiar text caused a sensation when it first appeared in 1983. Beyond the poetry of the King James version, here are the voices of the disciples themselves, speaking, as they undoubtedly did, in ‘plain braid Galilee’.

“A great literary achievement in its own right . . . [that] not only restores life to Scots but to the New Testament itself.” —The Scotsman