The Word of Promise Audio Bible: Complete Bible---Hear the Bible Come Alive (NKJV)

NKJV Audio Bible

By: Thomas Nelson

Narrated by: Jim Caviezel, Richard Dreyfuss, Gary Sinise, Jason Alexander, Marisa Tomei, Stacy Keach, Louis Gossett Jr., Jon Voight, Marcia Harden, Joan Allen, Max Sydow, Malcolm McDowell

This faithful rendering of the New King James Version (NKJV) presents the complete Bible in compelling, dramatic audio theater format with world-class audio production.

With an original music score by composer Stefano Mainetti (Abba Pater), feature-film quality sound effects, and compelling narration by Michael York and the work of over 500 actors, the The Word of Promise Audio Bible will immerse listeners in the dramatic reality of the scriptures as never before.

Each beloved book of the Bible comes to life with outstanding performances by Jim Caviezel as Jesus, Richard Dreyfuss as Moses, Gary Sinise as David, Jason Alexander as Joseph, Marisa Tomei as Mary Magdalene, Stacy Keach as Paul, Louis Gossett, Jr. as John, Jon Voight as Abraham, Marcia Gay Harden as Esther, Joan Allen as Deborah, Max von Sydow as Noah, and Malcolm McDowell as Solomon.

Great recording, not so great translation

The Word of Promise is a stunning production. On the basis of the production values alone, it easily deserves five stars or even more. The acting, music, and sound effects are all superb -- often achieving "movie quality" as claimed -- and it sounds terrific in Audible's enhanced format. The books are broken down into meaningful chunks of files with lots of bookmarks for navigation. Of particular note, among the books I've listened to so far, are Michael York as narrator, Stacy Keach as Job, Gary Sinise as David, and Martin Jarvis as the voice of God. (Portions of the New Testament have been re-recorded with Martin Jarvis in this role, replacing the original performance by Terence Stamp. It may have simply been for consistency, but it's a welcome change; Jarvis's performance is much stronger.)

Why not five stars, then? Because of the translation. The more I hear the NKJV, the less I like it. Whatever its other merits as a study text, it doesn't lend itself well to immediate comprehension in an audio setting. While the text has been modernized to some extent, there are still many archaic sentence structures, many familiar words used in archaic (and therefore unfamiliar) senses, and many personal pronouns that lack clear referents. In narrative books and in the Psalms, it works well; likewise if you're already deeply familiar with a particular passage or book. But it's just not an ideal choice for an initial exploration of difficult or unfamiliar books. The prophets fare particularly badly in this respect, and to a lesser extent so do several of Paul's letters. I often found myself reaching for another translation to make sense of what I just heard.

Of course, without the NKJV and the support of Thomas Nelson, the Word of Promise probably wouldn't exist at all. But it does mean you need to carefully gauge what you want out of an audio Bible and whether this particular one is a good fit.

book parts not in order

after a recent update the separate book parts are not in order making it impossible to find a book of the Bible I am looking for.

Now with Books' name and Chapters, love it

Now with Books name and chapter, it is just common sense, and now they fixed it. So I changed to 5 stars rating. How hard is it to have this country to have common sense???

Challenges for the typical bible reader

I can’t fault the book. Read as a regular book, there’s no problem. However, the chapter divisions are arbitrary. So, it’s impossible to find a chapter you wish to visit.

My solution? Starting with the 1st chapter of Genesis, I started my own index. For each book of the Bible, I recorded the chapter number of the audible book number, and the same for each book.

Now, when I reread the Bible again, I’ll have a ‘roadmap’ and not get lost.

This format was not created with the usual bible reader in mind.

This review was for the entire series (Bible) not just book 17.

Awesome

First time I have read or listened to..definitely a work to be studied. The voice that played God was kinda harsh on my ears.