The Voice (Bible translation)


The Voice is an English translation of the Bible developed by Thomas Nelson and the Ecclesia Bible Society. The Voice is a modern language, dynamic equivalent translation. The New Testament was released in November 2011, and the full Bible was released in April 2012.

Translation team

The team developing The Voice numbered more than 120 scholars, authors and artists. The team included Greek and Hebrew scholars, Biblical scholars, poets, authors, musicians and pastors. An interesting feature of this translation was that the team made the unusual decision to render the Hebrew Tetragrammaton as The Eternal rather than a common title such as The LORD or a transliteration such as Yahweh or Jehovah. Another distinction is rendering a title such as The Word as The Voice rather than as The Word which is used in most Bible translations or the less than common expression Logos as used in such translations as the Emphatic Diaglott and the Moffatt, New Translation of 1922, or the use of the Anointed One instead of Christ.

Criticism

The Voice has been harshly received by some fundamentalist critics. For instance, Baptist pastor Randy White writes: "The Voice reads like a New Age book. The familiar 'I am the way, the truth, and the life' of John 14:6 is rendered, 'I am the path, the truth, and the energy of life.' This and hundreds of other verses simply ooze with New Age terminology."