Friday, October 30, 2009

Book Review: The Expanded Bible

image This was a difficult translation for me to read. It's a word for word translation on steroids. The translation itself is actually quite readable. It's just the addition of synonyms and bible verses added linearly in the sentence that breaks up the flow of verse and rhythm and narrative that's such a huge stumbling block for me. I stumble and trip and stub my toes on those brackets.

Here's what I mean:

expandedbible

Now some may find it easy to selectively harvest nuggets of truth and brilliance from sentences this way, but for me, this is exactly what it means to miss the forest for the trees. I could never get the story because I'd be too tuned into the individual words. Is the lesson in the individual words or the complete text?

That said, I'll keep this translation on my shelf as a quick reference for a quick word study. But I don't think it will ever take the place of a Strong's Concordance, Bible dictionary, or Greek interlinear.

2 comments:

Vicki Small said...

Based on that small excerpt, it reminds me of the Parallel NT, which I haven't actually seen in almost 30 years. But this one looks more intrusive.

luann said...

Interesting. It reminds me of the Philips translation. Good review.