Barbour Publishing

This review casts no aspersions on the Bible itself - definitely a five-star work, amazing, exceptional, best book ever written, compelling, and all that.

Instead, this is a review of this particular translation of the Bible.

It has become all the rage to come out with "simplified" Bibles - Bible translations that get away from the "translationese" to become clearer to the modern reader/hearer.

From the introduction it seems this particular translation was the result of a desire to make show more concepts more clear and explainable in a mission context: to non-European or non-Western readers.

But what seems to be simplified are basic word concepts. "Prostitute" or "harlot" becomes "a woman who sells the use of her body." A prophet, at various times, is either "a person who tells what God will do in the future" or "a person who speaks for God" or something of the sort. Sentence structure is somewhat simplified, more in the New Testament than the Old.

Speaking of such, it is clear this was originally a New Testament translation with a later Old Testament translation appended to it. Reading through from Old to New becomes a jarring experience because the level of simplification is so much greater in the New than the Old.

Occasionally the simplification really succeeds and the full primary thrust of the passage really gets to you. Unfortunately, I had more moments where the simplification seemed to me to just make the text more clunky at best, and sometimes slightly misleading at worst. Prophets, for instance, don't always tell the future - they're just telling God's message for the people, and it's mostly rooted in the present, not the future. As with all such translations, to convey the primary meaning in a simplified form demands that secondary and tertiary nuances and flavors get completely missed or steamrolled over.

If it really helps out in the mission fields, I guess I can't complain much, but overall I do have to wonder about the value of endeavors such as these. It's not like place names or personal names are simplified, and in my experience, the learning curve for the novice Bible reader is made much worse by these rather than the use of "prophet" or "prostitute." It is a very interesting exercise to see the things translators prove willing to simplify ("regular" terminology) and the things they aren't (place names or people).

Also, it's based on the Majority text and all of its challenges, and includes the Comma Johannem. Why? I have no idea. Another strike against it.

If you as a reader are operating with a very limited vocabulary, or are working with a group of people with a limited vocabulary, this version might help. Otherwise, it's not even that helpful as a dynamic equivalence, to be honest. Meh. show less

This is a decent clean joke book with many Christianity-based jokes, but it is misleading to call it The World's Greatest Collection of Dad Jokes. I think of dad jokes as real "groaners", and often pun-based.- and jokes that dads tell to their kids. The chapter "For those who punderstand" comes close to that and has several good dad jokes within. But that's chapter five, and the rest of the book would appeal more to older audiences. The first chapter, In Hindsight, focuses on jokes about the show more elderly. Some are pretty decent but I would consider few to be "Dad Jokes" - would a kid understand jokes about the trials of aging? I could see a reverend telling these jokes to his congregation or a group of older parishioners and getting a great reaction, though. As titled, I think this book falls short. "Dad Joke" is a term we hear more and more often these days so I can see the publisher's desire to create a collection with this name. The amount of actual jokes in this book that fit this definition is small, so I would say two stars as titled, three stars if it was called Good Clean Jokes or similar and three and a half stars if it was titled Jokes for Ministers or something to that affect. I feel ministers would be the real audience for this collection. show less

I love devotionals and this new collection from Barbour Publishing is especially appealing! It's a beautiful hardback volume that's small enough to fit in my purse but contains an abundant source of hope, encouragement, and inspiration. There are 365 devotions that are one page long, and each one has Bible scripture, a short observation by one of the nine contributors, and a simple prayer prompt. I especially like that there's also a Scripture Index and a 'Read Thru the Bible in a Year Plan' show more in the back of the book.

This is such a wonderful resource for both new believers and seasoned Christians and it would be the perfect Christmas gift! I value the wisdom that's shared, and I look forward to using this Daily Wisdom for Women 2023 Devotional Collection during my daily worship time in the year ahead.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review. These are my own thoughts. show less

I bought this thinking that with all the famous quotes the bible is renowned for, this would be a handy place to read them for pleasure. That proved not to be the case. When taken out of context, a lot of these quotes don't have a lot of sense. And though I love the poetry of the best parts of the King James bible, when isolated, the language in many of these quotes is difficult even for an educated person to parse. Organized thematically, the quotes in each section also seem a bit show more arbitrary, and the compiler has stretched a bit too far in some cases and pulled in passages that may have the proper keyword but that clearly don't relate to the topic. I can at least say that the person who compiled this book did not do it in a spirit of meanness. For example, there is a topic called "Sexual Sins", but it doesn't quote the bible's condemnations of homosexuality and homosexuals. It also leaves out any mention of witches. I guess this is the kinder, gentler book of bible quotations, but it isn't a pleasure to read, and I'm not sure that even a religious person could get that much comfort out of it. There may be 20 or 30 quotations you could highlight in the 173 pages here, but you would do better with some other sort of book of religious inspiration. Not recommended. It was a struggle to read through, even a couple of pages at a time. show less