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“This book of the Law
should not depart from your mouth,
“and you must read it
in an undertone day and night,
“in order to observe carefully
all that is written in it;
“for then your way will be successful
and then you will act wisely.”
The Bible is enjoyed
in many different formats,
one of which is the audio edition
of the New World Translation.
“The good news according to Matthew.”
But how is it produced?
Let’s take a closer look.
When we first heard
that the Governing Body
wanted to record the revised edition
of the New World Translation,
I think all of us knew
that it was going to be a big job.
The narrator is one voice,
and all the other characters
are different voices.
It’s not a dramatic Bible reading,
but it’s a reading
with a high level of realism.
There’s no music,
no sound effects, just voices.
We were surprised to find out
how many characters there were in the Bible.
The Bible is a really big book.
I don’t think any of us realized
how big of a job it would be.
This is not a little project.
This is huge!
The research really is one of the items
that is very fundamental, basic.
It is very important
to get the facts together.
The Bible is true life;
it’s what really happened to real people.
We had to break down who the voices were.
And then we had to give each character
a unique name to identify him.
If he’s not named in the Bible . . .
We have to just give them descriptions
that are in the context,
like “Third Jew” or “First in the crowd.”
We were given a room
—a fair-sized room.
And we used it to make a list
of all of the characters in all four Gospels.
We began with the book of Matthew,
and we had to determine the parallel accounts
between the different Gospel writers.
You’ll have to use
the same voice for a character.
If he appears in one book,
he needs to be the same voice
in the other books.
Like in Matthew chapter 21,
we have this report
where Matthew simply says,
well, the disciples say
that ‘the fig tree has withered.’
But who are the disciples?
Did they all say it at the same time?
So if you check in Mark,
for example, Mark is very specific.
He says that Peter said:
“The fig tree . . . has withered.”
The Art Department
took those maps and charts in the appendix
and blew them up into poster size for us
as we were deciding
who said what and where they were
and how to name the characters.
It was very helpful to have that.
All that gets put into a database
—what kind of attributes they had—
age, where they were from,
what kind of traits
they were expressing in their quotations.
When the Bible talks about Jehovah speaking,
well, was it really Jehovah himself
who spoke?
Well, something we know is
that at least on three occasions
it was Jehovah who spoke.
This was when Jesus was on earth.
We compiled most of the research,
and then it was forwarded on
to Writing Research.
We have a large library here in Bethel
that is focusing
especially on Biblical subjects.
And we’re using this quite a bit
because we need to make sure
that what we say is solid.
We are a people for Jehovah,
and we are really—
Everything we say, it’s based on the Bible.
We don’t want to read
too much into Bible accounts.
And we don’t want to read it
in a way that steers incorrectly.
Because so many voices
were needed for the project,
we realized that we
wouldn’t be able to restrict ourselves
to using just readers at Patterson
where our Audio/Video studios are.
So we really didn’t have
a good place anymore in Brooklyn,
but we wanted some place
close to the Governing Body.
Yeah, New York City is a very noisy place.
So we hunted all over the buildings.
We finally found, in the basement
of the 25 Columbia Heights building,
a quiet place.
That’s where we are right now.
We are in the underground.
To start with, who’s in Bethel?
We have an audition bank
here in Audio/Video.
We poured through hundreds of auditions.
We had a brother from Africa
that we auditioned over the Internet.
He’s sitting there reading into a mic;
I’m watching him.
By the time we tallied
all of the characters for the entire Bible,
we realized we had
about a thousand characters.
So a thousand voices that we’ll need to find.
There was a reading seminar
at which we were taught
every aspect of reading.
And that was very effective
because it reminded us of a lot of things:
dos and don’ts for effective reading.
It really gave me
the confidence and understanding
that I think I can do this.
Some of the roles are very small.
Those short, very short passages
—those one-sentence lines
that we would call a person in for—
were some of the hardest to coach.
When I initially was asked
to participate in the Bible reading,
I was so excited.
And then I saw that it was one line,
and I thought:
‘OK, well, it won’t be too bad.
It will be easy.’
And then, so I listened
to the Bible reading seminar,
and it really helped me
to take it more seriously.
We would even ask the readers
to study this over.
You only have one sentence,
but study all about this character.
I read the chapter.
I read the Insight book.
And I realized
that this is more than just
saying one line.
What we have found is that it’s a good idea
to provide the reader
with a script that has been customized.
Have the word written out phonetically
so that you would know better
how to pronounce it.
I would say, “Sulomon.”
Sulomon?
Who’s he?
It’s that kind of thing.
So anyway, they helped you
pronounce “Solomon.”
And they were very careful to make sure
the pronunciation was accurate.
And that it would be consistent and accurate
all the way through the Bible reading
from beginning to end.
Every morning
we prepare the studio for recording.
We’ll go in, turn on the lights,
turn on all the equipment,
make sure that we have water
—hot and cold—for the reader.
One of the things we learned in the seminar
was the importance of staying hydrated.
Sometimes we can use vinegar or honey.
A little bit of lemon.
So when the character comes in, we try to
help them to kind of think about the context.
Of course, they have already done that
in their own research and practice
but a little bit more about, maybe,
the motive of the character.
How would they have felt
in this particular instance?
How would they say this line?
But we also want to make sure
the brothers and sisters
feel really comfortable,
and it often takes a long time
to get them to relax.
In the control room, there are basically
three roles and the reader.
The follower is responsible
to make sure that all of the content is there
—to make sure that no words are missing.
During the recording,
the audio engineer
is listening for anything
that will distract the listeners:
stomach noises or shirt noise
or if the brother is wearing suspenders.
The coach is responsible
for the quality of teaching.
I love watching the coach try to get
the right emotion out of the reader.
So then, you might read a line,
and he’ll say,
“Can you say that again with a smile?”
And it’s amazing
because then it sounds more joyful.
And then once you capture the emotion,
then it naturally comes out.
You’re not trying to copy
what he’s told you to say.
What we usually have a person do
is start with one emotion
—that you’re sad—
and then add each emotion on top.
That ends up getting
a very complex delivery of a line.
There are so many possible ways
to say one line,
and I didn’t even realize how many.
You think you know how the character said it,
and then the coach
will give you a suggestion.
The Bible, of course, is filled
with all different kinds of personalities.
And the Bible is full of bad characters.
When I got my assignment
and found out what I was supposed to read,
I really stopped
because at Bethel
and with everybody else
we’re supposed to be encouraging
to other people,
and here is a fella
who is talking disrespectfully to Jehovah.
And I had to stop and think.
These brothers were all mature Christian men.
They had their personalities refined
for years and years, this new personality.
To make those expressions
the way they were
by these contrary critters,
you had to think and put your heart into it.
And sometimes
when I pushed it a little too much,
they would say:
“Come on, cool it a little bit, will you?
That’s not exactly what we want.”
But I tried to be the bad guy
when I was supposed to be.
So the editing process
actually begins during the recording.
And then when we
get done recording,
perhaps a chapter,
we’ll take down the best takes of every verse
because the reader and the coach
can then listen back and see,
“OK, do we like how it sounds?”
We use professional software
to do the editing
—and that means
we do all the spacing that’s needed,
we pull in all the characters
for a specific chapter.
Because we record each voice individually,
it’s not a group of people
around the microphone
having the conversation,
so each character is done.
And then if there are multiple voices
in a chapter, then we pull them all together.
Once we started editing
these chapters together,
a beautiful artwork of truth
as you’re seeing the context jump out,
and for us to then feel it
and move us as the reader of God’s Word,
hearer of God’s Word.
The comment I’ve heard
over and over again is,
“It’s brought the Bible to life
in my mind and heart.”
And it has encouraged us
to meditate deeper into God’s Word.
Having the different characters
read the voices
is going to be such a comfort to all of us.
I think that this is really going to make
Bible reading exciting.
So now the Bible is alive,
and what a difference it makes!
I think they’re going to love it!

Production of the Audio Bible