Hearing “The Voice”

The Voice Bible proposes to do something new: present God’s word narratively rather than propositionally.  That may be an overstatement, as the Bible is propositional as well as narrative—that is, it makes statements of truth (also as poetic expressions, laments, songs,  psychological evaluation, moral judgments, and rousing exhortations) while it tells a story.  But story is the main concern of The Voice translators, and to help in that effort they made writers of fiction, music, and poetry part of their translation team.

They call their approach “contextual equivalence,” which means making every effort to convey some sense of the original context in contemporary language.  The method was interesting: in most cases, selected authors would write their own paraphrase of a book or passage, which the translation team would then compare to the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic texts.  The final result is supposed to represent the best of both worlds: narrative excitement and textual accuracy.  Christians will disagree (of course!) on how well they succeeded in either or both.  It seems to combine elements of paraphrase with the translation, but far less free-wheeling and idiosyncratic than a version like The Message.

The Voice New Testament has been available since 2007 but the entire Bible isn’t quite ready yet; the original publication date in November was pushed back to April of next year.  I was anxious to read some Old Testament selections, but that’s not possible.  Since we scheduled this review, though, I decided to go ahead with the New Testament only.

Three features immediately set The Voice apart.  One is the two-column formatting that includes explanatory notes within the text, rather than at the bottom of the page.  Since they’re printed in a different and larger font it’s easy to distinguish them from the Bible text, but some readers might find them distracting.  I found them more helpful than not, but maybe that’s because I already know my way around the Bible.  New readers may need some direction.

Another feature is that dialogue is printed in “screenplay” format, with the speaker named and directions noted.  For example:

Jesus (to the new Jewish believers): If you hear My voice and abide in My word, you are truly My disciples; you will know the truth, and that truth will give you freedom.

This is supposed to breathe freshness into the narrative and also make it easy to assign parts when reading aloud in a group.  I can see how this would assist in dynamic group reading, and might help new Bible readers visualize the scenes as they unfold.  Such as Acts 13:9:

Paul and Barnabas: OK, then [!]. It was only right that we should bring God’s message to you Jewish people first.

The third feature is the most controversial, indicated by the excerpt from John, above.  The translators have added words and phrases, and sometimes entire sentences, to convey the “nuance” of the passage that the original hearers and readers would have supplied automatically.  I’m not sure how well 21st-century scholars and authors can grasp what nuances 1^st-century (and much earlier) readers would have understood.  Sometimes the inserted words can help—as, for instance, providing a sense of transition or time lapse.  But the temptation to blur meaning, or simply interpret the nuance of a passage through one’s own theological perspective, would be impossible to completely overcome.  In the passage above, for example, most translations have Jesus saying, “If you abide in My word,” etc.  It’s hard to see how any particular shade of meaning is added by “hear My voice,” (also, “make you free” is a much stronger grammatical construction than “give you freedom”), but again, that may be because I’m already familiar with the verse.

To its credit, The Voice doesn’t back away from harsh passages like “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated”—there it is, in black and white.  Romans 9:16: “The point is that God’s mercy has nothing to do with our will or the things we pursue.  It is completely up to God.”

Sometimes The Voice shades meaning a bit, but packs a real punch, as in Eph. 2:1: As for you, don’t you remember how you used to just exist?  Corpses, dead in life, buried by transgressions, wandering the course of this perverse world.”  To “just exist” is not the same as being dead in trespasses and sins, but the addition of “corpses” returns the power that “just exist” took away.  At other times, the translations sticks to the meaning well enough, but dilutes the impact, as in John 14:6:  “Jesus: I am the path, the truth, and the energy of life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  The way we all learned this verse, “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” is much more direct and powerful.

The fact that some of the people involved in this translation are connected to the Emergent Church movement may raise red flags.  For the analytical types in your household, some textual complaints can be found here.  For myself, I would regard The Voice as useful for comparison and sometimes reading aloud, but wouldn’t use it as a study Bible.

If you’re looking for last-minute Bible-related gifts, see our thoughts on Reformation Heroes, picture books about God, and Shepherding a Child’s Heart.  Also, Emily’s two posts on Easter gifts, here and here, open a wide bloggy portal!

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