[I was reading through some old blog posts of mine from awhile back, and thought this review of The Voice Bible was worth re-posting here. I originally posted this on my Posterous blog (a site which is now defunct) back in August of 2012. None of the links in the text work, as the original posts were imported into Tumblr long ago.]

I’ve been meaning to do this review for quite some time now, but I wanted to “get comfortable” with The Voice Bible for a little while before I reviewed it.  This would be a good time to mention that I received my free electronic copy of The Voice Bible from Thomas Nelson’s Booksneeze blogger program.  Check ‘em out…it’s a good way to get some free books in exchange for writing a relatively brief review online.
I’ve done a few reviews of The Voice New Testament on this blog a little while back; you can read my thoughts here and here and here.  Many (perhaps most) of my initial impressions still stand, but I would like to consider the Old Testament in this review, as I have reviewed the New Testament pretty thoroughly on older posts.
The main problem I have with The Voice is not really a problem with the book itself; rather, my difficulty is with the way in which the book is marketed.  If you look at the book’s official website, you will find the term “translation” all over the place.  But is The Voice really a translation?  I think not; I see it as more of a “creative engagement” with the text of Scripture.  As such, it can be a marvelous tool for unpacking Scripture, for digging into some of the possible meanings of Scripture, but it should probably be used in conjunction with a “real” translation.  A few examples will demonstrate what I mean.
Let’s begin at the beginning, with the first few verses of Genesis:
In the beginning, God created everything: the heavens above and the earth below. Here’s what happened: At first the earth lacked shape and was totally empty, and a dark fog draped over the deep while God’s spirit-wind hovered over the surface of the empty waters.  Then there was the voice of God. [italics in original]
This is not too bad–pretty traditional, in fact.  But, right away, we see how the writers insist on adding whole phrases, not necessarily to clarify, but to set the scene in a creative way.  "Then there was the voice of God" almost seems like “product placement.”  They have to include the title of the book in that first verse.  I realize the good ol’ King James Bible added italicized words into the text as well, but generally, the italicized words in the KJV simply make the grammar readable, rather than trying to “enhance” the text.  
Let’s take a look at a poetic text, from the Psalms.  This is Psalm 8:3-4…
When I gaze to the skies and meditate on Your creation–on the moon, stars, and all You have made, I can’t help but wonder why You care about mortals–sons and daughters of men–specks of dust floating about the cosmos. [italics in original]
This is quite beautiful, but is the extra poetic enhancement really part of a translation?  "Specks of dust floating about the cosmos" is a whole line of poetry added to the text, as a sort of meditation on the meaning of human life in a huge universe.  The line conjures up images of the Hubble telescope, images that are most likely quite foreign to the worldview of the psalmist.  Once again, the added material goes well beyond clarification, into the realm of poetic expansion.
I would like to present a more extended passage from Job, to examine what I find to be one of the more interesting features of The Voice’s page layout.  This is Job 1:9-12.
The Accuser: I won’t argue with You that he is pious, but is all of this believing in You and honoring You for no reason?  Haven’t You encircled him with Your very own protection, and not only him but his entire household and all that he has?  Not only this, but Your blessing accompanies whatever his hand touches, and see how his possessions have grown.  It is easy to be so pious in the face of such prosperity.  So now extend Your hand!  Destroy all of these possessions of his, and he will certainly curse You, right to Your face.
Eternal One:  I delegate this task to you.  His possessions are now in your hand. One thing, though: you are not to lay a finger on the man himself. Job must not be touched. [italics and boldface in original]
I won’t belabor the point about the material in italics, although my earlier comments apply to some of the added lines in this passage as well.  I do like the easy-to-read layout of the “script” format, although I don’t know if it would work all that well when reading the text out loud (unless you wanted to act it out).  I also find it interesting how the writers use the capitalized “You” when addressing God. That very old-fashioned convention is rarely used in modernn translations, except for the NKJV (and perhaps the NASB).  I’m not sure what the reasoning behind that traditional touch is.
I have been surprised by the kerfuffle on some of the more conservative reviews of The Voice I have read, that so many people have problems with the writers’ use of titles for God and Jesus: the Eternal One, the Anointed One, and the Liberating King, for example.  "The Eternal One" is a pretty decent way of engaging with God’s proper name.  "Anointed One" is a very accurate rendering of Christos.  "Liberating King" is a bit too interpretive for my taste, but I find it significant that the writers are trying hard to get away from the word Christ as Jesus’ last name.
Overall, I find The Voice Bible to be a very engaging and creative way of interacting with Scripture.  I simply feel that it should be used in conjunction with a more “standard” translation (for lack of a better term).  It can be a great tool for unpacking the text, but it shouldn’t be seen as a translation as such.

​Posted via email from CORYBANTER: babble and banter, bypassing banality

This isn't strictly a post about Bible versions, like most of my posts on this blog. But it does relate to the Bible, of course. You see, about twenty years ago, when I was in grad school studying Voice and Choral Conducting, I decided to take an elective for my last year that was not music related at all. So I enrolled in New Testament Greek for a year. As it turned out, I was barely able to keep up with all the homework, what with it being my last year of grad school and all, but it still got me interested in Biblical Greek. Over the years I've accumulated a lot of Greek resources, including several different grammar books and many different editions of the Greek New Testament.

When the pandemic lockdowns first began, I really worked hard on my Biblical Greek (and Hebrew). I figured all the time stuck at home was a great opportunity to jump-start my studies. For a short while, I felt like I accomplished quite a bit. But then, with one thing and another demanding my attention, those studies fell by the wayside. And now, with the pandemic all but over, I'm beginning to go through all my resources, and I'm planning to give it another shot. Hopefully this time I can make it beyond the basics of first declension nouns and present active indicative verbs.

Meanwhile, my favorite Greek grammar is Rob Plummer and Ben Merkle's Beginning With New Testament Greek. It's an excellent book, and there are a host of free resources on their website. Rob Plummer also does the remarkable Daily Dose of Greek videos, that I've found very enlightening. I've also ordered another Greek grammar that I've explored a bit in ebook form: Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker. It seems to go a little deeper into details than some other grammars, but it's beautifully laid out, and I think it will really inspire me.

​There are a few other resources that I've been looking at lately. Dave Black's website is chock full of Greek resources. I also recently discovered SIGNT, ​the Simple Interlinear Greek New Testament, which looks like it could be a pretty handy tool. It's easy to use, and helps with parsing info with a simple click of a mouse. I've also gotten more interested in more authentic pronunciation of Koine Greek, and the YouTube channel, Reading the Bible in Greek with Maria, could be a good resource in that area. There are also great resources for reading Koine in a more authentic accent at KoineGreek.com. (All due respect to Rob Plummer and his academic abilities, his Greek sounds amazingly American.)

As Dr. Plummer has pointed out in a few different videos, there has never been a better time for the average layperson to learn Greek on his own. There are so many resources out there, many of them 100% free. So, no more excuses...time to do this! Wish me luck.

I must admit, I am quite intrigued by a translation of the Gospels by Sarah Ruden, which was published just last month. It appears from her website that Ms. Ruden has published several translations of classic Greek literature: the Aeneid, the Homeric Hymns, and a few others. It seems that she takes a similar approach to translating the Gospels as one would to translating other ancient Greek works. The description of her Gospels translation is copied below:

I just purchased the Kindle edition of the book, and I am finding that the purchase price ($14) is worth it for her excellent Introduction, at the very least. I also find it interesting that she retains Greek spellings of proper names. It promises to be a reading experience quite unlike most English translations of the New Testament. I am looking forward to digging into the translation a bit more deeply over the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, this screencap of the opening of Mark's Gospel will give you a glimpse at just  how different her approach is to most translations...

The above YouTube video was one of the promo videos that came out in 2011 to advertise the then-new Common English Bible (CEB). Most of it is exactly what you'd expect from a Bible ad, different people explaining why they think this is a great Bible for their needs. But the part that really gets me starts at the :43 mark, when the guy who is apparently a high school students begins to compare reading the Bible to reading Shakespeare in his English class. He says, "In English class we're reading Shakespeare, and I hate reading that...I do, because nobody talks like that. You don't talk like that, I don't talk like that. So if somebody were to hand me a Bible and I were to open it up and read, '...and thou shalt gather the spoil of it into the midst of the streets thereof, wherein thou shalt this...' And I mean, I understand that's the language of the day, but I don't get it, and I'm not going to read that.'"

I'm sorry, but that's just ignorant. By that I mean that modern English Bible translations have been around for decades before the CEB was published: the New International Version, the Living  Bible, the Good News Bible, the Contemporary English Version, the New Living Translation. Those are just a few off the top of my head that were published before the CEB. So maybe it's possible that the young man in the video (who was probably just an actor) had never read a Bible that wasn't a King James Bible, but it's not likely. If he was in high school in 2011, there had literally been numerous modern English translations available for his entire life. I know the publishers of the CEB weren't claiming that theirs was the first ever English Bible in easily understandable, everyday English, but the video strongly implies it. I just wish Bible publishers would be more responsible and truthful in their marketing.

I know it's old news, but as I indicated in the title of my post, it's been ten years, and this promo still rubs me the wrong way! Maybe someday I'll get over it...

I was going through some of my old blog posts on Corybanter.com, and came across this post I did about King James Onlyism back in 2017. It has a link to the KJV discussion from the John Ankerberg Show, which was recorded in the 1990s. (It also contains a ridiculous anti-RSV meme; I'm not exactly sure where I dug that one up! Enjoy...

[This little article was originally posted on my personal blog, Corybanter.com. I thought the content was actually better suited to the Bible Bookshelf Blog, so I'm reposting it here. Enjoy!]

Yesterday I received (after a long, infuriating hassle with USPS) the hardcover edition of Holman's Ancient Faith Study Bible (CSB). Now, generally speaking, most of the hardcover Bibles I've purchased in the past have not been exceptionally beautiful. Oh, they may have a nice dust jacket design, or sometimes there's a groovy little cross design or something on the cover. But, frankly, hardcover Bibles are, for me, a cheaper alternative to the nicer leather bindings that don't fit into my budget. Not so the Ancient Faith Study Bible!

Right off the bat, if you'd like to get a good look at this Bible, I strongly recommend a YouTube video by R. Grant Jones, wherein he reviews this same hardcover edition very thoroughly. (Indeed, that video was what made me want to get one for myself!) He does a much better job describing it than I will be able to do in this post.

To begin with, the cover of this Bible is beautifully done, a chocolate-brown cover with an ornate golden cross design. It includes two ribbon markers, brown and red. The pages are gild-edged, and the whole effect is aesthetically pleasing to my eye. ​

When you open it up, things get even better! The pages are a lovely cream color that is very easy on the eyes. Chapter numbers are in a deep red color, as are the book headings at the top of each page. Each book of the Bible begins with an ornate capital letter in that same deep red.

As you can see in the picture above, the section headings are in a nice, bold all-caps font. The typeface throughout the book is very legible. Even the inside front and back are beautiful, with an ornate pattern that goes very nicely with the rest of the aesthetics of the book.

So much for the visual effect of the publication. I am really looking forward to digging into this Bible, because all the notes and materials are from the church fathers (thus the "Ancient Faith" of the title). Ancient wisdom from Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Irenaeus, and many more are found in footnotes and articles. And these articles aren't merely small, half-page sidebars. Many of them are full-page, or even two-page biographies or theological content. In addition, each book Introduction contains information from the church fathers, as well as the usual content one finds in study Bibles, information about context, structure, authorship, etc.

As I hope I've made clear on this blog, I get excited about Bibles. That's why I have the blog, after all. But rarely have I been this excited about a new addition to my Bible bookshelf. Holman Publishers have knocked it out of the park on this one. It's a beautiful piece of work, and I am greatly anticipating reading it more thoroughly over this Lenten season. Do yourself a favor, and check out the video review from R. Grant Jones I shared above. Bible Buying Guide's review of the leather-touch edition of the same Bible is also excellent (as usual). I don't think this study Bible will disappoint.

I was browsing at my local used bookstore today, and stumbled on a copy of David Bentley Hart's translation of the New Testament. The copy was in almost perfect shape, and quite inexpensive, so I decided to pick it up. This translation, which was published back in 2017, is meant to be (according to the dust jacket blurb) etsi doctrina non daretur ("as if doctrine is not given"). As far as I can tell, this means he is attempting to translate without being beholden to any particular religious tradition. Hart, who is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, according to his dust jacket bio, is not pretending that he is completely free of bias. As he writes in his Introduction, "This is not to say that I can pretend to be free of intellectual prejudices; I can only say that I have made every effort not to allow them to interpose themselves between me and the text, even when the result has at some level displeased me."

As I have only just obtained my copy of the book, I have not read the whole work yet. So I shall be jumping around in the text, in order to highlight a few of the unique features of this translation that jump out at me. For one thing, Hart has avoided merely transliterating Greek terms such as Χριστος (Christos) or διαβολος (diabolos), which often appear in Bibles as "Christ" or "devil," choosing instead to render them with descriptive words like "Anointed" or "Slanderer." On the other hand, he has chosen not to assign a particular English word to a theologically rich term like Λογος (Logos), so in his opening one reads, "In the origin, there was the Logos..." An unusual sounding turn of phrase, to be sure, but not entirely without precedent. (James Moffatt's translation of the Bible in 1922 also left "Logos" untranslated.)

In the passage of Matthew's Gospel commonly known as The Beatitudes, the reader may be surprised to find Jesus saying these words: "How blissful the destitute, abject in spirit..." A footnote informs us that the Greek word (makarios) can mean "blessed," "happy," "fortunate," or "prosperous," but says the word originally had "a connotation of divine or heavenly bliss." In the following chapter, the Lord's Prayer is surprisingly familiar.

Certainly not the worst Lord's Prayer translation I've ever read! (For my money, that "honor" would go to Eugene Peterson for his version in The Message. That one is truly awful.)

Hart does not attempt to smooth out shifts in tense in the Greek text, as most modern versions do. A couple examples would be Matt. 3:1, where the chapter opens, "Now in those days comes John the Baptist..." Or in Mark 1:40, "And a leper comes to him..." I don't know about other readers, but I find this kind of style very refreshing. It is quite similar to what Robert Alter has done with his monumental translation of the Hebrew Bible, leaving phrases that sound odd to the English reader's ear as he finds them in the original language, more or less untouched, so the unfamiliar nature of the text draws the reader's attention.

It seem to me that, since Hart is not beholden to a religious community or a committee, he is free to approach gendered language in the text as he sees fit. So in Matt. 5:9 the peacemakers are called "sons of God," rather than "children of God." In Matt. 4:19, we see the phrase "fishers of men" and not "fishers of people" or some such wording. At a casual glance at Paul's epistles and John's first epistle, it looks like he uses "brothers" for the Greek αδελπφοι (adelphoi), rather than the more inclusive "brothers and sisters." That choice may anger some readers, and it may delight others. I find it to be, in general a faithful rendering of the text.

Footnotes throughout the text, while certainly not as extensive as, say, those found in the NET Bible, certainly seem to be quite helpful at explaining some of his translation choices. And there is a rather lengthy section at the end, after The Revelation of John, called "Concluding Scientific Postscript," which seems to describe some of his guiding principles of translation.

Overall, I am pleased with this purchase, and I shall be digging into it a bit more in the future. I may share some more of my thoughts in a later post.

Yes, February 8th is International Septuagint Day! According to the website of the IOSCS, the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, the date is "a day to celebrate the Septuagint and encourage its study." Why this particular date? The IOSCS explains the choice...

In observance of the holiday, I've been digging through a couple English translations of the Septuagint, specifically the Lexham English Septuagint (2019) and A New English Translation of the Septuagint (2007). I've also been looking at my two-volume set, Septuaginta: A Reader's Edition, a Greek Septuagint with helpful vocabulary helps at the bottom of each page.

I also found a book that I am quite enjoying about the importance of the Septuagint in biblical studies: When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible, by T.M. Law. So far, it seems to be a very accessible guide. Finally, another great Septuagint resource is Invitation to the Septuagint, by scholars Karen H. Jobes and Moisés Silva.

​Have a very happy International Septuagint Day!