Review: New Testament on MP3
Several months ago – before our lives were derailed by two crises – we received a set of cds from Thomas Nelson which contained the entire New Testament on mp3. Regular readers probably understand that we take the New Testament in the same vein as D’Aulaire’s Norse Myths – good stories with interesting people and plots and some valid life lessons, stories that some people at some time believed were true. We take what works for us and leave the rest!
JediBoy believes staunchly in the Greek and Norse gods (especially after having read the Percy Jackson books, which set the Greek gods in the modern world) but lumps Jesus in the same category as Santa – someone who might be real or might just be a good story!
In any case, he loves audio books and so this set was a real treat for him. The Word of Promise – Next Generation New Testament is a dramatized audio version with teen-star actors and musicians as the performers, including Cody Linley, Corbin Bleu and Sean Astin. The dramatization includes a musical score and sound effects, too. The 24-hours worth of mp3s on 3 cds were a delight to JediBoy, although his bedroom cd player does not play mp3s so he listened to this drama in the van, by the stereo, and on his mp3 player. He was drawn in as by any good audio book, although – since this is a word-for-word reading – there were sections that he didn’t understand or didn’t enjoy as much.
At seven, he’s probably too young to be reading the bible for himself (and being able to make much sense of it) so we appreciated this dramatic audio version as a great way to acquaint him with the stories within the New Testament, which are often alluded to in other works, and so are helpful to know. I’m sure this set will continue to be in rotation with his other audio books.
