Review: The Voice

 By Saeeda Ravenell

    
The Voice™ will be introduced to the public this month. A new translation of the New Testament, The Voice™ includes voices or ideas from contributors that consist of an award-winning fiction writer, a poet, a pastor with artistic and narrative methods of teaching, and a biblical scholar. Together they used their ideas to complete The Voice™.

  
Brenda Smotherman, publicist for Thomas Nelson, says that The Voice™ gives “additional background [information] on setting and characters.”  The Voice™ also includes “historical and cultural expansions of the story.” A “screenplay-like format” is used to end repetition and enhance readability. The Voice™ is “based on the earliest and the best manuscripts from the original languages,” and words and phrases are replaced for “clarity.”  As a reader, I didn’t care for the screenplay format or the background information in the boxes in the author’s own words. I believe it takes away from the original text.  

A sampling of John 1:2-5 follows: “Before time itself was measured, the Voice was speaking. The Voice was and is God. This celestial Voice remained ever present with the Creator;  His speech shaped the entire cosmos. Immersed in the practice of creating, all things that exist were birthed in Him. His breath filled all things with a living, breathing light. Light that thrives in the depths of darkness, blazing through murky bottoms. It cannot, and will not, be quenched.” According to the Ecclesia Bible Society, italicized words indicate words “not directly tied to a translation of the original language.”

  
For more information and to see what you think, you can visit http://www.hearthevoice.com.