On the historical present

David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament came under criticism for many things, but one of them continues to puzzle me: namely, his literal translation of the so-called "historical present." In his latest volume of essays, published just a few months ago, he defends his decision persuasively, to my mind.

What I'm left wondering, though, is whether biblical critics' disagreement with Hart is one of fidelity to the original sense or contemporary judgments of linguistic style. That is, do biblical scholars think the historical present ought to be translated in English past tense because "that is the sense in which it would have struck the ear of a native Greek speaker in 70 AD"? Or because "that is the style that native speakers of American English are used to in 2020"?

The question struck me while reading two novels this summer. One was Melville's Moby-Dick, published in 1851. The other was John le Carré's Agent Running in the Field, published in 2019.

Both novels toggle constantly back and forth (in, respectively, 170-year old American English and 1-year old Queen's English) between past tense and present tense, sometimes on the same page or even in the same paragraph, and always regarding events that have already happened, that is, events located in the past. "While he was speaking, the ship turned: and all of a sudden, I see the whale": that sort of thing.

So if it is the case that well-written and popular English novel-writing about "past" events employs the "historical present" style intermittently with the past tense proper; and if it is the case that ancient writers in Koine Greek, such as St. Mark, did the same; then why not translate it that way? Why not opt for the more literal translation (at least, that is, in translations that aim for formal rather than dynamic equivalence)?

There may be a good answer to that question. I just haven't stumbled across it yet.