What I'm Listening to Now

For my New Testament class, we have to read through the NT (obviously). The pace is pretty quick and hard to keep up with. I didn't really want to repeat the experience of slogging through the OT while also keeping up with reading multiple commentaries in addition to my other schoolwork. So, I started shopping around for a good audio version to listen to so I could re-familiarize myself with the text while doing other things.

I thought about buying the classic audio version read by James Earl Jones - who I love - but heard the sample and kept thinking I was hearing the Bible read to me by Darth Vader. I first saw "The Bible Experience" several years ago in an Arkansas Cokesbury store. I was intrigued by it at the time, and have since picked it up many times. However, like any good audio Bible, it's pretty pricey and I could never afford to buy the whole thing, especially since (already owning several Bibles) I didn't have a need for it. So, when I was shopping for podcasts of the NT this time around, I saw that you can purchase individual books of this program through ITunes. Cha-ching!! I could buy what I needed at a fraction of the cost I would spend to buy the entire physical version and still have access to (in my mind) the best audio performance of the Bible around.

And it is a performance. With people like Blair Underwood (Jesus), Samuel L. Jackson (God) and Denzel Washington (Song of Songs), in addition to legendary gospel singers and acclaimed pastors voicing the characters and narration, the result is bar-none. In addition to the excellent vocal rendition of the text, original scoring and original gospel music accompanies it. I didn't know that actual "music-music" was a part of it, and was totally disoriented when, while listening to 2nd Corinthians, heard a "get on your feet" gospel song blare out randomly between paragraphs. Once I got used to it, though, I came to enjoy these random "dance-breaks." The songs correspond to whichever topic the text is covering at the moment. The books also feature high-quality, realistic sound effects. So, for example, during the performance of 1st and 2nd Corinthians, you hear Paul speaking over the sound of a ship at sea during a storm. In Galatians, you hear Paul speaking from a marketplace. Sometimes, I must admit, all this extra noise is a bit distracting (especially that damn duck who quacks all the way through Galatians). With all the extra music, scoring, sound effects and multiple voices, sometimes it's a bit overwhelming. However, my attention from the story certainly isn't zapped the way it was when listening to samples from either James Earl Jones or Johnny Cash, who read with NOTHING behind their voices. The only other con about this audio is that it is treated as a true performance, so no chapters or verses are read, which makes it difficult in my case, where I need to be aware of text critical issues. However, overall, I feel like I have fallen in love with the Bible again. I'm actually excited to drive the 40 minutes through rush-hour traffic to get to-school-and-back, just so I can listen to more. I definitely will be asking for the entire physical version for Christmas. How could I miss Angie-frickin'-Stone singing the Psalms! or Forest Whitaker as Moses!