Thursday, 26 May 2011 15:49 | and posted in Book Reviews
The Voice is a fresh and highly readable translation of the New Testament that was first published in 2008. More than any other translation I have ever read, The Voice captures your attention and hooks you into the Biblical narrative and doesn’t let go. The majority of my own Bible reading tends to last around 10 minutes before I start to get fidgety and lose concentration – a result of the Bible being written in such a different style to which I am used to. With The Voice however, I find myself reading for hours instead of minutes, much like I would when reading a good novel.
The Voice translation has successfully fused a careful and accurate translation with a readability that makes it extremely easy and pleasant to read. They have achieved this by teaming Biblical scholars/translators up with accomplished writers, poets, songwriters and artists. It is a translation that has focussed as much upon literary skill and beauty as it has upon scholarly expertise and accuracy. Readability is further enhanced by including text in italic type that does not directly tie in to a translation of the original language but which communicates information that would have been obvious to the original hearers (and not to us 2,000 years on). While these additions perhaps sound odd or even theologically wrong, you really begin to appreciate the increased narrative flow and clarity this offers as you read. With this text clearly highlighted in italics you’ll find it doesn’t compromise the meaning of the original text.
The other aspect of what make this translation unique is that they’ve tried to give voice to the many different authors who wrote the books of the Bible. Most English translations seek to flatten out the styles of these different authors within the sentence structure and vocabulary used in each book, in affect making them all sound similar. This can give you the unwanted feeling of reading an impersonal text-book rather than a colourful array of passionate authors with different styles and personalities. What The Voice has done is put 11 biblical scholars and 10 contributing writers into different teams and assigned them to different authors. This means that Mark reads differently to Matthew, Paul reads differently to Peter, etc.
As you read The Voice part of what hooks you is the beauty of Scripture and the compelling narrative on offer. I highly recommend checking out this translation and if you love it as much as I do getting your hands on a copy as soon as you can as it will help transform your bible reading!
If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch you can download this entire translation for free in the iTune App Store!
Alternatively, you can buy it on Amazon. Also available is a The Voice translation of the Psalms.