Review of The Voice New Testament

I have mixed feelings about "The Voice" edition of the English Bible. I think I can unreservedly call it a Bible, because itis actually based on the original Greek, whereas some modern "Bibles" are more like commentaries or someone's personal opinion of what the Bible means (okay, I confess, I'm not a big fan of The Message). But "The Voice" has struck a unique balance that I'm not sure I've seen before. They have definitely inserted opinions and commentary into the text of the Bible to help (we hope, anyway) readers who either struggle with reading English or struggle to understand some of the theological or cultural concepts in the Bible because of the great distance in time and culture between the first readers of the Bible and modern readers. BUT, they have put such comments into italics, so that the reader knows that the explanatory phrases and clauses were not in the original. They also put something like study notes periodically in the columns of verses, but they're offset something like a call-out of a quotation in a magazine article. Personally, I found this Bible distracting, because I was forever comparing its very modernized colloquialisms with the more formal English editions that I was used to. Oh, and another distracting thing--in the Gospels, they introduce each speaker "script-style." When the disciples speak, you see "DISCIPLES:" in the text next to the verse, instead of a narrative-style "And the disciples said to Jesus..." So, I will not likely use this Bible regularly for myself. I'm not as hesitant to give it, however, to someone who has very limited reading skills, or perhaps struggles to comprehend newspaper-level English. For someone like that, I think this Bible would be a good option; certainly, it would be better than something like The Message.

Review of WHAT'S HE REALLY THINKING?

I'm a guy. So I picked up this book out of sheer curiosity to see if it lived up to its claim that it could tell women everything about the male mind. Here's my evaluation: just like any book that claimed it could tell men everything about the female brain, this book was a little ambitious when it came to its claims. I'm not saying that it doesn't give some very helpful, valid insights, but there a few spots where I would say that it's dead wrong, and a few others where it makes some broad assumptions about all men based on information from one or two guys. Not a bad read, just not the miracle it claims to be!

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the 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 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”