SPIRITUAL FOCUS ON BOOKS June 2, 2008 Issue

HARDLY ARCHAIC

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

The Voice of Mark Retold by Greg Garrett Commentary by Matthew Paul Turner Thomas Nelson, 2008 113 pages

IN A COLLECTION of talks and lectures under the title The Luminous Dusk, Dale C. Allison Jr. writes with guarded concern about what he calls the "fate" of the Bible. Where else but in churches and seminaries, he asks, do people yet think they can get the truth by reading "an archaic tome"? Allison suspects that much of the contemporary Biblical trade is in gift Bibles, which are forever kept but scarcely touched. "The encouraging sales," he writes, "do not prove that we are laying up Scriptures in our hearts."

How this anxiety—even cynicism—contrasts with the contents of a box that squeezed into the Sentinel's mailbox recently! It included the latest books in The Voice series (a collaboration between Ecclesia Bible Society and publisher Thomas Nelson)—the Gospel according to St. Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews. Both books help capture the spirit of The Voice project, which wants the next generation of Bible readers—whatever their background—"to have the best opportunity to hear God's message the way the first generation of Bible readers heard it," and to experience its "joy and wonder." Two CDs, featuring modern songs of praise, were also included.