The Greatest Story Ever Sold
Just in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season, Carl Amari, the producer behind “Twilight Zone Radio Dramas” and “Mystery Theater”, released an audio interpretation of the Old and New Testaments on 79 CD’s. This 98-hour long production involved over 1,000 actors, technicians and musicians, and features an original music score by Stefano Mainetti, and film quality sound effects. The end result is “The Word of Promise Bible“.
STAR POWER
Jim Caviezel, star of the remake of “The Prisoner”, and crucified in 2004 in Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”, reprises his role of Jesus for this epic audio drama. Other cast members include Marcia Gay Harden (Esther), Malcolm McDowell (King Solomon), Richard Dreyfuss (Moses), Jason Alexander (Joseph) and Luke Perry as Judas. Michael York narrates both testaments. British actor Martin Jarvis is the voice of God. Voice-over actor JoBe Cerny (the voice of the Pillsbury Doughboy), directed an incredible 175,000 takes.
As you can imagine, a project like this is fraught with challenges. I know first-hand how hard it is not to step on people’s overly sensitive religious toes, when it comes to recreating creation and all that follows… During my time at the BBC, I was asked to produce an hour long radio drama for Radio 1, which specializes in current popular music and chart hits. The idea was to retell the story of Easter through music and narration, but in a way that would appeal to young adults.
TRANSLATION
One of the first problems I ran into was which translation of the Bible to use. Here are just a few choices:
Revised Standard Version (1952, RSV)
New American Standard Bible (1963, NASV)
The Jerusalem Bible (1966, JB)
New English Bible (1970, NEB)
Living Bible (1971, LB)
Good News Bible (1976, GNB)
New International Version (1979, NIV)
New King James Version (1982, NKJV)
Reader’s Digest Bible (1982, RDV)
There are, of course, a few more ‘exotic’ options. Mike Coles is Head of Religious Education at Sir John Cass’s Church of England Secondary School in East London. He wrote “The Bible in Cockney: Well Bits of it, Anyway….”
Here is his version of the Lord’s Prayer from Luke 11:2-4:
HELLO, Dad, up there in good ol’ Heaven, Your name is well great and holy, and we respect you, Guv. We hope we can all ‘ave a butcher’s at Heaven and be there as soon as possible: and we want to make you happy, Guv, and do what you want ‘ere on earth, just like what you do in Heaven. Guv, please give us some Uncle Fred, and enough grub and stuff to keep us going today, and we hope you’ll forgive us when we cock things up, just like we’re supposed to forgive them who annoy us and do dodgy stuff to us. There’s a lot of dodgy people around, Guv; please don’t let us get tempted to do bad things. Help keep us away from all the nasty, evil stuff, and keep that dodgy Satan away from us, ‘cos you’re much stronger than ‘im. Your the Boss, God, and will be for ever, innit? Cheers, Amen. Who is it for? Geezers and birds, oi, oi, oi
Then there’s the Princess Diana Bible. In this gay version of the Bible, God does not create Adam and Eve. He creates Aida and Eve instead. This Bible is not completed yet, but portions of Genesis and Leviticus can be read on the official website.
“The Word of Promise Bible” uses the 1982 modern translation of the King James Bible.
CASTING
The second challenge was obviously casting. Christian and non-Christian producers are still struggling with questions such as:
- Must God really have a British accent?
- Could Jesus be a Yankee?
- Would it be wrong to cast an African-American as Judas?
- If our “voice of God” happens to be female, would the Bible Belt still buy the audio book?
- Why can’t King David be played by an openly gay actor?
NARRATOR
For my Easter special, we picked Ezekiel Gray a.k.a. The Man Ezeke, as our narrator. Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and nicknamed ‘Rasta’, Ezekiel was the first black daytime presenter on Radio 1. Some had their doubts about a DJ recounting what most people regard as the heart of the New Testament, with a distinct Jamaican accent. There was no reason for concern. Ultimately, the production ended up winning a Sandford St. Martin Award for excellence in Religious Radio Programmes.
IT’S A WINNER
The New Testament from “The Word of Promise Bible” was released in 2007, and was picked as the Christian Book of 2008 by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (the first audio Bible to receive this award). So far more than 700,000 copies were purchased. It’s the greatest story ever sold. If you don’t believe me, just ask Joan Allen (Deborah), Lou Diamond Phillips (Mark), Lou Gossett Jr. (John), Stacy Keach (Job & Paul), Gary Sinise (David), Marisa Tomei (Mary Magdalene), Jon Voight (Abraham) or Max von Sydow (Noah).
Paul Strikwerda © 2009
PS the Word of Promise Bible was nominated for Audio Book of the Year 2010 by the The Audio Publishers Association (APA). On May 25th we’ll find out if it will be the winner of an Audie Award.
