Book Review - The Voice New Testament

I found this version of the Bible very difficult to review.  On the one hand, it was refreshing to have it presented like a screenplay.  It is a totally different way of reading the Bible than I have ever encountered before, and subsequently it made me look at Scripture in a new way.  However there were parts of it that I didn't like.  Commentary is embedded into the story, which at times is very helpful, but at other times, distracting.  If it is something that the original readers would have understood, it’s written into the sentences themselves, but put in italics.  However if it is helpful background etc added by the authors, it is separated, but included into the body of the text.  It is great to have all that background information, but I found at times that the commentary just interrupted the flow of reading the actual text.  I would have preferred it to be included in the margins or at the bottom of the page, like my NIV Study Bible.

I thought at times that the commentary in The Voice bordered vaguely on being sacrilegious, but that is just my own opinion.  In the passage where the angel visits Mary to tell her she is going to become pregnant and then visits Joseph in a dream, this is how it is set out:-  Messenger of the Lord: Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to wed Mary and bring her into your home and family as your wife. She did not sneak off and sleep with someone else—rather, she conceived the baby she now carries through the miraculous wonderworking of the Holy Spirit.


In the passage where Jesus speaks about divorce:  Jesus: Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But divorce was an innovation, an accommodation to a fallen world. There was no divorce at creation. Listen, friends: if you leave your wife, unless there is adultery, and then marry another woman, you yourself are committing adultery. Only if there is adultery can you divorce your wife.

Why? Because adultery itself is the divorce. Adultery is the thing that breaks the bond of marriage. Just as an excommunication merely recognizes the fact that someone has already been removed from the people, a divorce merely legalizes what harlotry has created. But should someone leave his wife for any other reason—because he has nothing to say to her, because she continually burns his food, because she is profligate with the household resources, because he simply cannot stand the sight of her—this is outside of the message Jesus offers here. 

I don't like the King James Bible for the simple fact that it is written in language that is not how we speak today, nor is it how Jesus spoke 2000 years ago.  So for that reason, The Voice has value today because it is written in contemporary language, which should encourage people to read it.  However I'm not a great fan of The Message Bible either, and I thought there were similarities between it and The Voice.  I much prefer the NLT or NIV.

Disclosure: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. 

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