The programme also features the Rt Revd Tom Wright, former Bishop of Durham and, as most readers are no doubt aware, author of many books on Paul and early Christianity.
Watch and enjoy the reminder that ours is a faith of the book, spread by the written word: despite all the challenges faced by the trade right now, Christian bookselling is still alive and well.
Have you done it? Read the entire Bible within the space of one year?
If not then perhaps now is the time to start, joining in with the thousands of young people across the country who have committed themselves to the Soul Survivor Bible in One Year project.
Even if you don’t plan to join in yourself, at the very least you should think about stocking this Bible, available from STL UK (hardback | paperback) or, of course, direct from HodderFaith; and if you’re not sure what it’s all about, here’s Soul Survivor’s Andy Croft on a mission to persuade:
Welcome to the Bible in One Year!
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I confess that I have my reservations about the project, and I tweeted as much from the LST Bookshop:
Finding it difficult to get enthusiastic about the Soul Survivor ‘Bible in One Year’ scheme when it’s based on the NIV *sigh*
But back came a reply in very short order, from @bexp66:
be enthusiastic, my kids are talking bout readin the bible!! Tho they wanted The Message version! What wud you suggest?
agreed, esp. with the flawed comment. Inclusive should have been essential as well.
There’s no doubt about it: the NIV is, to quote Tom Wright, “a visibly and demonstrably flawed translation”, biased in its translation “to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said” — not only on justification, the particular topic Bishop Tom is referring to here, but also in terms of reinforcing misogyny rather than encouraging equality and inclusivity. If it had to be NIV-based, why not at least get into the early 21st Century with the TNIV??
But setting those reservations aside momentarily, it can surely only be a good thing for these youngsters to get to grips with the whole Bible rather than the decontextualised snippets most daily devotionals tend to offer. One can only hope that rather than spoon-feed them pre-packaged evangelical perspectives, the organisers will encourage their young (and not-so-young) conversation partners to read Scripture critically and intelligently, with their eyes wide open to its human origins and foibles: to not blindly affirm, “This is the Word of God” but to ask, “Is this the Word of God?” — and if it is, to ask, “What does it mean for us today?”
In a message to trade partners issued 23 April 2010, Hodder Faith have announced the departure of Sales and Trade Marketing Director Jean Whitnall “to pursue a portfolio of new interests.” Exactly what those interests are has yet to be revealed but booksellers and other colleagues are promised “a fulsome farewell” to Jean at the Retailers and Suppliers Retreat in May.
My thanks to Jean for her support over the years and my best wishes for wherever the future takes her.
Lucy Hale, Sales Director, writes:
After 13 very successful years with the Hodder Faith team Jean Whitnall has decided to leave Hodder in order to pursue a portfolio of new interests. We are extremely sorry to lose her as she has been a key member of the Faith team during a transformative time for the business. Jean has worked successfully over the years to build strong relationships on behalf of Hodder Faith within the Christian trade, proving herself to be both a positive and popular ambassador for the company.
She has been instrumental in securing the position of the NIV Bible as the most popular Bible in the trade, and in fuelling the groundswell of enthusiasm that has led The Shack to sell over 500,000 copies in our markets alone. Jean will leave us after CBC in May where we will have a fulsome farewell.
By an ironic twist of timing, just as Jean prepares to move on from her role as Hodder’s champion of the NIV, news has emerged that NIV arch-critic, Bishop Tom Wright — who describes the NIV as “a visibly and demonstrably flawed translation” — is also preparing to move on, retiring as Bishop of Durham to return to academia and pursue his “vocation to be a writer, teacher and broadcaster”. Whether the Bishop’s new role as Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, will really allow him to focus on his writing remains to be seen, but given his antipathy to the NIV I guess it’s unlikely that we’ll see him switch publishers from SPCK to Hodder or Zondervan (who publish the NIV in the USA) anytime soon…
Unless you’ve been living in the dark ages, you must have heard of Glo by now: it’s the Bible for a digital age, a dramatic multimedia presentation of the Bible supplied on 3 DVDs which — if it lives up to the hype — promises to change the way we read the Bible for ever.
Already released in the USA by Zondervan, it officially hits UK bookstores courtesy of Hodder Faith on 12th November 2009 at a special introductory price of £49.99, regular price to be £59.99. USA stock apparently sold out within two weeks, and at LST we’ve already pre-sold our initial stock order and reordered: if you plan to stock it and haven’t already placed your orders, now is the time! As I write, the introductory price on single units only seems to be available when placing orders direct with Hodder/Bookpoint: STL UK list it at £59.99, but offer the 4-copy counterpack with LCD screen at £199.96 retail. Demo CDs are also available in packs of 15, free of charge.
From what I’ve seen and the feedback I’ve heard so far from those who attended the launch event at LICC earlier this week, the hype has not been overdone: this looks like a corker of a package that — to those who can afford it — will be well worth the asking price:
All that said, however — and you just knew this was coming — I have my reservations about it, starting with the simple fact that it’s yet another edition of the Bible for those who already have more versions, translations and special editions than they know what to do with, for whom Bibles have become hardly anything more than fashion accessories: the rich continue to get richer whilst the poor continue to struggle and do without; and that, gentle reader, is plain wrong.
Yes, I’m back on my favourite hobby horse: what exactly is going on in the English speaking world — what exactly is wrong with the church, the body of Christ in this part of the world — that makes it invest so much time and energy in producing still more English versions and hi-falutin’ editions of the Bible when there are millions of people who do not yet have the Bible available in their language?
Let’s face it: the ‘digital generation’ being targeted by Glo is not exactly deprived or needy, is it? Anyone with a mouse and a bit of nouse is perfectly capable of doing their own research and discovering most if not all of what they’ll be spoon-fed by Glo.
Then we have the unfortunate fact that it’s based on the NIV, a “demonstrably flawed translation” (Tom Wright) that really ought to be consigned to history, not recycled electronically. A longer quote:
When the New International Version was published in 1980 [sic], I was one of those who hailed it with delight. I believed its own claim about itself, that it was determined to translate exactly what was there, and inject no extra paraphrasing or interpretative glosses. [...] Disillusion set in over the next two years, as I lectured verse by verse through several of Paul’s letters, not least Galatians and Romans. Again and again, with the Greek text in front of me and the NIV beside it, I discovered that the translators had had another principle, considerably higher than the stated one: to make sure that Paul should say what the broadly Protestant and evangelical tradition said he said. [...] if a church only, or mainly, relies on the NIV it will, quite simply, never understand what Paul was talking about. [...] those blown along by this wind may well come to forget that they are reading a visibly and demonstrably flawed translation…
Glo is undoubtedly an excellent resource and I do not doubt the good intentions of those who have invested so much money, time and effort in developing it. But I do think that all of that money, time and effort would have been far better spent in working with an organisation such as Wycliffe, in helping them towards their Vision 2025.
As Coldplay sing so evocatively, we live in a beautiful world: all of us are done for … because we also live in a profoundly unjust world, and we as the church — including Bible publishers — should surely be working to counter that injustice, not propagate it by widening the rift between the haves and the have-nots. It seems more than a tad ironic that the very Scriptures that frequently cry out so powerfully on behalf of the poor have now become yet another rich person’s plaything; and as for me, stocking and selling it: the word ‘hypocrite’ comes to mind…
RT @notbovvered: Storehouse, Watford's Christian Bookshop, is looking for a new manager: details on the Christian Gateway Watford... htt ... 2 days ago
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