80 of 83 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Many Pluses and a Few Minuses, November 10, 2008
This review is from: The Voice New Testament (Paperback)
I received a review copy from publisher Thomas Nelson and have been working through it. My thoughts:
What is The Voice?
It's a new Bible retelling and commentary created by the Ecclesia Bible Society (launched out of Ecclesia Church in Houston) and Thomas Nelson Publishers. It strives to maintain the original character of the authors, whereas many Bible translations strive to give a more consistent style across all books. The preface says The Voice is holistic (considers heart, soul, and mind), beautiful (achieves literary and artistic excellence), sensitive (respects cultural shifts and the need for accuracy), and balanced (includes theologically diverse writers and scholars).
What I Like
* Its narrative style and artistic sensibility makes it very readable, but not watered down. It's modern and accessible, and usually without falling into the more gimmicky wording that sometimes befalls The Message.
* Dialogue is formatted in screenplay style. In a traditionally-formatted translation, Luke 1:60-61 reads
But his mother answered and said, "No indeed; but he shall be called John." And they said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who is called by that name" (NASB).
But in The Voice it reads
Elizabeth (disagreeing): No. We will name him John.
Her Relatives (protesting): That name is found nowhere in your family.
* The Voice uses informational boxes in-line with the text rather than as footnotes. It's a much better reading experience and allows the reader's eyes to keep tracking along the page instead of constantly bouncing up and down the page to look at the footnotes. An example of one of these info boxes, from John 8:4: "Imagine the tension in that moment. You can sense the sarcasm in the air as these men threatening Jesus are now calling Him `Teacher.' Jesus knew this was a test."
What I Dislike
* It's not a translation but a retelling. Additional text is added to clarify the meaning and is indicated with italics. For example, John 8:8-9 reads like this in the NASB:
Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.
And in The Voice:
Once again Jesus bent down to the ground and resumed writing with His finger. The Pharisees who heard Him stood still for a few moments and then began to leave slowly, one by one, beginning with the older men. Even the pious Pharisees knew they had sinned, so there would be no stones thrown this day. Eventually only Jesus and the woman remained, and Jesus looked up.
The Voice doesn't claim to be a literal translation, so it's not misleading to include this additional text since it's clearly marked (the Amplified Version does this too). However, it's a little like releasing an amplified version of A Tale of Two Cities that begins, "It was the best of times because the rulers and ruling classes lived in opulence, but it was the worst of times because the masses were being oppressed and hurtling toward revolution." It does give more explanation, but there's a lot lost in the process as well.
* The informational boxes are inconsistent in their pronoun usage and narration. The boxes in John are in first person ("My life changed that day; there was a new clarity about how I was supposed to live.") but in third person in Luke ("More than any other Gospel writer, Luke wants to situate the story...") and elsewhere.
* The terminology is sometimes forced, such as the repeated use of Liberating King (instead of Messiah or Christ), John the Immerser (instead of John the Baptist or John the Baptizer), and "ritually cleansed" instead of baptized or immersed. I appreciate the intent to make the language more accessible to those who are unfamiliar with some of the more explicitly religious terminology, but too often it comes across as forced and clunky rather than smooth and understandable.
The Voice is a mixed bag with much in its favor but some important weaknesses as well.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Review from One of the Writers/Reviewers, December 2, 2008
This review is from: The Voice New Testament (Paperback)
I'm commenting as one of the writers and reviewers on THE VOICE NEW TESTAMENT. I've been with the project from the beginning and have translated, commented, reviewed everything, sometimes many times.
The first question is this: is it a translation or a retelling? Well, it is both. Whenever you move from one language to another you are translating. In every chapter of every verse we are working from the original languages (Greek in the New Testament and Hebrew in the Old Testament). There are differences, of course, between formal, informal and dynamic translations. Ours is a dynamic translation. But it is a retelling because we have translated it with a view to telling again this amazing story of redemption and grace.
One thing we have tried to do in this translation is to avoid a common practice known as transliterating. Many words in other translations are merely transliterations of Greek words. For example, "Christ" is from the Greek "Christos." Rather than translate the meaning, most translations just render it "Christ." But most people--even people in the church--don't understand the meaning of "Christ." We treat it as Jesus' last name, but it is not. It is a title. So we have chosen to translate the title as "the Liberating King" or "Liberating King." The phrase "Jesus Christ" is actually a confession: "Jesus is the Liberating King" or for the purists out there "Jesus is the Messiah." Now if you are an insider, you may know what this language means, but most people in the world don't. This translation is for them. If you think it redundant, don't blame the translators, blame the writer (like Paul) who uses the title over 200 times in his letters.
We've done the same with words like "baptism" (from the Greek "baptisma"), "angel" (from the Greek "angelos") and "apostle" (from the Greek "apostolos").
There are many innovations in this translation. We hope you will read it and benefit from it. We hope too that some people will pick up the Bible for the first time and hear the Voice calling them, inviting them into a new kind of citizenship, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Translation? Paraphrase? Gratuitous Rewriting? All of the above...., December 22, 2010
I have given this book a three star rating not because I am ambivalent in my feelings towards it, nor because I am lukewarm in my reaction. I would like to give it five stars for its vision and how far it's moved toward accomplishing that vision, and I would like to give it one star for its failures and excesses, so, rather than write two reviews, I averaged the score.
Five stars: The Voice does bring the text alive in some fresh ways which are apparent as soon as one cracks it open (or, I suppose, scrolls down -- since many of its target audience will probably prefer the electronic edition). For example, the presentation of many of the narrative scenes in the format of a drama (again, "screenplay" would be the more familiar analogy for its target audience) is a brilliant move, and one with a revered pedigree in the churches. I think, for example, of the dramatic reading of the Passion of Our Lord in many liturgically-oriented churches on Palm/Passion Sunday and on Good Friday, a tradition that goes back to late medieval chanted presentations of the drama of Matthew 26-27 (or a parallel in Mark, etc.) and came to fullest flower in the settings of the Matthew and John Passions by Bach. This format would also encourage the dramatic reading of these texts in churches rather than the solo-voice lay reader approach, something that I wish churches would do more often, since so much of Scripture is drama. The explanatory boxes -- as a concept -- are also actually a quite interesting idea. They invite an interactive reading of the text, allowing the box-writers to jump in, as it were, to try to give some background, to keep the reader fixed on the major plot of the drama, and the like. They also remind me, to some extent, of the time-honored tradition of the Bach Passions, where reflective arias and hymns explore responses to each scene in the narrative. And, of course, I do applaud the goal of making the Scriptures as accessible as possible. I believe that The Voice could have done so, however, without the debits (see next paragraph).
One star: I have some serious reservations about this translation -- and, indeed, with calling The Voice a "translation" at all. A "translation" seeks to represent the meaning and impact of a text written in a source language as fully as possible in a new, target language. A translation tries to lose and to add as little as possible. It does not matter whether that translation be based on formal equivalence or functional/dynamic equivalence: the purview of a "translation" is limited. A "paraphrase" often works from an existing translation, seeking to make that translation more accessible. In practice, they add a whole lot. The Voice is sometimes a translation, sometimes more of a paraphrase, but sometimes an all-out interpretative Targum. In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, as long as readers are clearly made aware that they are reading a highly interpretive, highly "leading" representation of the original, and provided the leading is not "mis"-leading.
Italics
Let me begin here with my strongest objection: the introduction, in italic typeface, of material not actually represented in the Greek manuscripts. The NASV had used italics in English Bible translations to represent words that had no direct correspondence with the Greek but that were necessary to make good sense in English. This practice was unobjectionable. The preface to the Voice explains that the material in italics "may contain information that would have been obvious to those originally addressed in the Gospel or letter" and are meant "to help the reader better understand the text without having to stop and read footnotes or a study guide." The reader is alerted to expect the italicized text, then, to bring out what is implied in the text, or what a first-century reader would infer. This, too, might have been unobjectionable, to the extent that the writers really fought hard against their tendencies to have the text imply what they, rather than first-century audiences, would infer. But I find the italicized text in practice to do far more (and therefore far worse) than the preface indicates/warns. For an example, let's just look at a few passages in the first half of the Letter of Jude. The italics in The Voice will be indicated here in brackets.
1. Jude 3
The Voice: "Friends, all I think about is our communal redemption, [the story of our Father sweeping us up together in His salvation hands. But these days my heart is troubled,] and I am compelled to write to you and encourage you to continue struggling for our common faith that was entrusted to the saints once and for all."
DdeS translation, for the sake of comparison: "Beloved, while I was exercising all diligence to write to you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write to you to encourage you to keep struggling for the faith that was handed over once for all to the holy ones."
The italicized text here is introduced to give a brief overview of what the translators would regard as the message about "the salvation we share," motivated perhaps by their general desire to keep the larger picture in view. Not terrible, but neither can one say that the first-century audience would infer all this, and do so in this particular way. What is lost here, however, is what Jude specifically wanted to convey: the current issue is so urgent that he ceased writing about the "salvation we share" and turned instead to write a short, admonitory letter about the dangers of the interlopers. He wasn't just "thinking" all day about "our communal redemption"; he was writing about it and a greater need arose (thus heightening the audience's attention to what follows).
2. Jude 5
The Voice: "But even you, in your knowledge, forget God's saving acts.] You have heard the stories many times, [and the Spirit has enlightened you about their meaning,] but you still need to be reminded. Remember when the One [who scooped us from the earth] saved our ancestors by scooping them from the land in Egypt? [He breathed life into our earthen lungs] and took back the life from those who did not believe."
Again, for comparison's sake: "So I want to remind you, even though you know all this already, that the Lord, having decisively saved a people out of the land of Egypt, later destroyed those who didn't show faith."
The first two sentences in The Voice just seem to me to be a much wordier and unnecessarily pointed way to say what Jude had already said more clearly: "You know all this, but a reminder can't hurt." The part about the Spirit enlightening and imparting knowledge is probably true to the early Christian mindset (cf. Heb 6:4-5), but how the translators/writers feel justified in bringing it out here is beyond me. The second half of the verse is what I find far more objectionable. The Voice introduces two resonances with the story of God's creation of humankind in Genesis 1-2 that simply have no basis whatsoever in Jude 5 or its context. There is nothing in the Greek that would begin to say "hey, think about Genesis 1-2 as the background here." It's gratuitous rewriting of Jude on the part of the translators here. Moreover, it obscures the very point Jude is trying to make: The people who left Egypt with Moses experienced God's deliverance but, when they didn't press on in faithfulness, they were condemned to perish in the desert and were destroyed." Hmmm.... An attempt to domesticate a passage that might speak against "eternal security" (see below on "The Team")? Or just a really bad translation?
3. Jude 7
The Voice: "Sodom and Gomorrah and all their neighbors were defeated by their own sexual perversions as they pursued the strange and unnatural impulses of the flesh. Let these who [went their own way and] are experiencing the eternal heat of God's vengeance -- a punishment by fire -- be a warning to you. [Let it be known: God will be glorified.]"
A tighter translation for comparison: "So Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities, similarly indulging in sexual immorality and going after a different kind of flesh, lie as an example, suffering the punishment of everlasting fire."
First, The Voice misses the specific sin of Sodom as Jude portrays it: it is not simply pursuing "the strange and unnatural impulses of the flesh," but "going after strange (i.e., a different order of) flesh," namely trying to have sex with the angelic visitors -- a fitting counterpoint to the example of the Watchers in Jude 6 (see Gen 6:1-4 and 1 Enoch 6-16). Second, Jude doesn't actually say that the people of Sodom suffer ongoing fiery torment, but only that the still smoldering plains where Sodom was believed to have been situated remain a geological "hot spot" as a testimony to their sin and punishment (cf. Wis Sol 10:6-8). The Voice underscores its incorrect interpretation with the first addition here. The second addition -- a complete sentence! -- is just gratuitous. The best that can be said for it is that it's in keeping with the regula fidei, I guess, but there's no reason to suppose that this is a natural inference from the Greek.
4. Jude 12-13
The Voice: "They are waterless clouds, carried away by the wind; autumn¡¦s lonely and barren trees, twice dead, uprooted; violent waves of the sea [breaking over the bow,] foaming with shame; [lost and] wandering stars destined to live forever in gloomy darkness. [They are hopeless and without a home.]"
A comparative translation from the Greek: "They are waterless clouds carried along by the wind, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead and uprooted, wild waves of the sea, churning up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness is forever reserved."
Main point to...
Read more ›
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
