“The Voice™ is the product of the best minds in this emerging generation of Christian leaders.” (So notes Amamzon.com in their Editorial review section.)
Have to admit I am a latecomer to this series, now completed as The Voice New Testament.
The editorial review comment on Amazon.com states The Voice to be a new translation of the dynamic equivalent philosophy.
Having received my copy yesterday, I read through Matthew, portions of John, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians. Hebrews, 2 Timothy, 1 & 2 Peter, 1 John, Jude and The Revelation. My plan will be to continue during my morning reading til completed.
To be sure, it is very readable and I found the screen play dialogue format helpful. The side-bar boxes containing informative data are also helpful. Commentary within the context of the passages can be helpful, but also subject to mis-leading, i.e. the reader thinking it to be actually part of the text!
Couple of things bumming me out at this point: changing a noun into a verb in 2 Tim. 4:7. The Voice reads, in part, “…I have kept believing…” when the text says Paul “…kept the faith… (NASB, NIV, ESV, and a host of others).
I understand the concern for gender but fail to grasp why “brothers” in 1 John is translated “brothers and sisters” in most places, and “fathers” is translated as “fathers and mothers”, yet children is not translated as “boys and girls” nor is “young men” translated as “young men and women”. Hey, let’s be consistent in our gender inclusively!
In Matthew: I can’t seem to recall anywhere in the Greek text where John is ever called the teacher or teacher and prophet? Also the sidebar comment about Mary never having kissed a man caught me off guard. How is this ever known? Yeow!
Still, for reading I would class this with The Message, a good read but one to avoid when one is interested in studying the text.
