Sunday, March 22, 2009

New Testament audio version

The official title of this Thomas Nelson product is The word of promise : next generation - New Testament, which is quite a mouthful. This audio Bible is available on CD in regular audio format (20 discs) or MP3 format (4 discs) which is what I tried out.

MP3 format is handy for loading onto portable players. I played it on my computer and routed the sound through the stereo system so sound quality was excellent. It's also nice to have only a few discs to keep track of and not so many disc changes to break up the listening.

I have had no trouble understanding any of the readers. Their voices are different enough to make it easy to tell them apart. There's a reasonable variety of regional accents, and a good mix of high and low, male/female, soft/loud voices. I don't always agree with their pronunciation of proper names, but there is a lot of room for variation with some of those names. The background "music" does not overpower the speaking so it's easy to catch every word.

"Music" is in quotes because it's not what I would call music. There are instruments and they are playing notes but there's not much in terms of melody or lyricism. It reminds me of background sound tracks on low-action computer games. If I could turn it off, I would. It occasionally conveys a mood, but most of the time, it's just there.

Although the cast was chosen to appeal to a young teen audience, this production is certainly not only for teens. The relatively young age of the readers, however, does limit their interpretation of some of the characters. Jesus, for example, never raises his voice despite the fact that some of the situations clearly call for that. Paul is also overly earnest at times. On the whole, however, I enjoyed listening to the clear reading of the New King James text.

The word of promise next generation New Testament dramatic audio Bible. Issued in 2008 by Thomas Nelson and Falcon Picture Group. Product # 23755 40222.

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