Book Review: The Story of the Voice by David Capes

ISBN: 1401676693
Published: March 12th, 2013
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers
Synopsis from publisher:

Step into the story behind “the story.” Discover the reasons behind and the vision for The Voice translation! In-depth interviews with key participants explain the translators' motivations and visions for the project. Learn how the translators worked to bring a balance between scholarship, literary style, and forward thinking to meet the scripture needs for the church.
Features include:

• Discussion of how The Voice makes the Bible accessible to new believers

• Explanation of The Voice’s unique style and features

• Examples illustrate how scholars worked through the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible

• Firsthand accounts of The Voice translation project

Review:

This book tells the story of how The Voice translation came to be.  The beginning tells the reader a bit about some of the key people who worked on the translation.  Then, there are chapters about different aspects of working on the translation, including why they chose certain words over others and how the translation was marketed.

I thought this book was very interesting.  I knew nothing about The Voice translation before reading this book.  I'll probably never read the translation, since I'm Catholic and it's a Protestant Bible.  (Actually I found it very interesting that at the end the author, who had repeated over and over that there are 66 books in the Bible, talked about how there will never be any books taken away or added from the Bible, when in fact there are 73 books in the Catholic Bible and seven were taken out of the Protestant one.)  Still, it was interesting to read about the translation, and I'm definitely intrigued by it.

Some parts of the book were harder for me to get through than others.  The beginning chapters were basically just biographies of people who worked on the project, and I more-or-less skimmed through those. The chapters about word choice and why they translated certain things the way they did was extremely interesting to me though.  I really enjoyed those chapters.

If you find The Voice translation of the Bible at all intriguing, then I'd recommend checking this book out.

Disclosure of Material Connection: 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. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”