Reflections on some dood reading the Bible to you while you cruise the streets of the ATL.

Alternate title: A review of the ESV Listener’s Audio Bible, read by Max McLean.

Before I start the flow on, I’d like you to meet Max. Max McLean.

Max is the reader of the ESV version of the audio Bible I picked up last week. This is my first experience with an audio Bible, but it finally occured to me that I waste soo many hours listening to meaningless music on the radio, and I can’t deal with the Christian stations on Atlanta radio. You can read further thoughts on that on my previous post, here.

[if you want to hear what I'm talking about while I'm talking about, here's the link to him reading 1 chapter listen] Anyway, Max reads the Bible, and he reads it about how you would expect a guy who looks like that to read the Bible. Very Shakespearean. He seems to pause for a moment after saying a difficult-to-say word, as if to revel in his ability at how hard it was to say. He puts some inflection on words that are particular tense.

I’m being hard on it though. I am quite aware that it has to be read in some way, and he reads it as well as anyone else could. That is to say, you can learn and meditate on the words read by how he reads it.

Aside: One of the best things about it, but hard to put a real handle or value on, is the benefit of hearing/reading the Bible in some form other than a traditional, thin-paged, leather-bound, silver-lined copy of it. I think we ascribe a sense of holiness to the words written in a traditional Bible, despite what the words say. Listening to the Bible be read for large amounts of time help to break this, and hear the text in a new way. It’s kind of hard to explain.

But am I actually gaining anything from it? Well, yes and no. It’s difficult to stay focused on the reading when you’re supposed to be, you know, operating a 1-ton plus vehicle at speeds between 40 and 80 mph. The bottom line is this: its difficult to process passages in the Epistles where there is a large block of text that follows a train of thought for 10+ verses. But for narrative passages, or passages where there is a discussion, it is golden. It helps you to meditate on sections of the Word that you normally wouldn’t spend much time on.

I highly recommend purchasing an audio Bible, especially those among you who commute for any sizable distance, or who realize how useless listening to the radio is. You can get the version I picked up for just under 50 bucks, shipped, here.

FL: Courtesy of Josh – If getting a Bible on CD is too… mature for you, or you want some suitable alternative for your children, consider… www.talkingbibledolls.com!!