Garett Morris voices Satan. Blair Underwood is the voice of Jesus. God in the Old Testament gets the voice of global evangelist Pastor Paul Adefarasin. And Samuel L. Jackson is the voice of God in the New Testament. Bishop T.D. Jakes speaks as Abraham. Moses is Forrest Whittaker. Kirk Franklin is Peter, Nia Long voices Mary the mother of Jesus, Phil Morris is Paul.
A stellar cast of mostly African-American celebrities from film, television and music, plus well-known members of the clergy, backed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, has produced Inspired by ... The Bible Experience, a dramatised audio recording of the Bible. Every character in the Bible, including those without a known name, is voiced by a star. And the grand narrator is Matt Gibson. I am listening with the greatest pleasure and excitement! The intent of the project, which is backed by Christian publisher Zondervan, the explanatory DVD says, is to make the word of God come alive. It has succeeded fabulously.
The project is the brainchild of Kyle Bowser, an entertainment executive and producer who was unimpressed by the audio Bible he purchased as the answer to his problem of not being able to stick to reading the text of the Bible. Bowser envisioned a new audio Bible, featuring unparalleled talent, stirring music, state-of-the-art sound effects, and an overall resonance that would "pierce the listener's ear and soul".
vision shared
This vision was shared with a small group of Hollywood producers who pooled skills and resources to form the Inspired By Media Group. Can any good thing come out of Hollywood, as Andrew [voiced by Dwight 'Heavy D' Myers] asked of Nazareth when he was told of Jesus of Nazareth?
Producer and casting director Robi Reed went after the biggest names in Hollywood to portray 368 Bible characters. Denzel Washington was the first recruit. Angela Bassett followed. "Yes! I have to do it!" was Denzel Washington's immediate response. And he got to voice one of the most romantic parts in all of Scripture, the 'He' in the Song of Songs. The caste included 23 Grammy winners, five Golden Globe winners, eight Emmy winners and three Oscar winners. Most of them black.
Black people have a special and unique relationship with the Bible. In New World slavery, we found both our solace and deliverance in the Word of God. The American Negro spiritual, a major contribution to world music, and the Jamaican spiritual sprang out of the slaves' and newly emancipated ex-slaves' engagement with the Word. The musical soundtrack of Inspired by ... The Bible Experience carries "a broad spectrum of indigenous musical genres." Our Samuel Sharpe, anti-slavery slave revolutionary and now national hero, was a Baptist deacon. Christian Revival in Britain and the work of the non-conformist missionaries in the colonies were very large contributors to Emancipation and the anchoring of freedom in peace.
multiple points
The Bible intersected with the African continent at multiple points in time. Abraham, Israel and Jesus sojourned in Egypt. The Queen of Sheba came out of Africa to visit Solomon and an Ethiopian nobleman took back the Christian Gospel with him after his encounter with Philip, the evangelist, while returning from religious pilgrimage made to Jerusalem.
Foxe's Book of Martyrs lists Matthew [voiced by Wren T. Brown on the audio Bible] as the apostolic evangelist converting Ethiopia and Egypt. Both Judaism and Christianity, the religions of the Bible, were firmly established in Africa long before the European missionaries arrived.
The production of Inspired by ... The Bible Experience had the most profound impact on the participants. The producer described herself as the "crying producer". People did not just act a role, they became their character. Blair Underwood, as Jesus on the cross, became as far as a mere man can ever become, "The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." The DVD telling the production story shows Blair in studio caught up in the gut-wrenching agony of the Christ as he cried out at Calvary, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The Bible says of itself: "The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." The performers could not escape its power or conceal its effects. As one of them testified, "[This] is not a project of man, but a God-breathed project."
This audio Bible, breaking all sales records in the genre, audio book of the year, and critically acclaimed, uses the brand new Today's New International Version, an update of the NIV, as its text. "Among the many English versions of the Bible that appeared in the 20th century, the NIV has gained the widest readership in all parts of the English-speaking world."
Produced by more than 100 scholars from all over the world, from a range of denominations, and working directly from the best available Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts, "from the beginning the translators have been united in their commitment to the authority and infallibility of the Bible as God's word in written form". A stance which, of course, makes them all 'fundamentalists' in the original sense of the term created as a response to so-called higher criticism intent on mythologising the Word of God and stripping it of any real and reliable meaning.
never finished
"There is a sense in which the work of translating the Bible is never finished," the Introduction to the TNIV says. And one is reminded of that grandest and most enduring English translation of all, The King James Version, which also now has its own New King James Version, one of my favourites. As James I did in assembling the very best biblical scholars of early 17th century Elizabethan England for that translation, so the Inspired by ... The Bible Experience has assembled some of the best African-American performers of today to audio record Scripture, men and women of like passions to the characters they became and just as much in need of the saving grace of the Christ.
What has become of the project for translating Scripture into Jamaican?
I have been drawn to Inspired by ... The Bible Experience not just out of love of the Scripture, like Kyle Bowser and countless others, but, as a communication person, out of fascination with its superb technical quality and the use of modern technology to make the Word come alive. The Bible was the first book off Guttenberg's printing press. I strongly feel that modern ICT must be pressed into the service of "more people engaging the Bible more", as Zondervan, the Bible publisher, puts it. And the DVD with the production story opens with this cry from one of the prophets: "You of this generation, consider the word of the Lord!"
While there are disappointing patches, like the rather flat rendition of the peak drama of God speaking from Mount Sinai, Inspired by ... The Bible Experience is truly a magnificent and reverentially awesome treatment in fabulous audio of the Word of God, which abides forever - never mind the dead and dying critics of all sorts.
Martin Henry is a communication consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.
Denzel Washington got one of the more romantic parts in all of Scripture. The He in 'Song of Songs'.