About The Ultimate Drama
The Ultimate Drama is a new series of biographies translated from the Old Testament / the Hebrew Bible. The series' title, The Ultimate Drama, was chosen to reflect the fact that the Bible contains some of the most dramatic material ever recorded in the history of the human race – material which has been read, heard, and more recently watched, over and over again throughout the centuries, by myriads of people, in thousands of languages around the world. The Bible undeniably provides us with the ultimate in drama.
Everybody enjoys a good drama. Regrettably, we must often deal with two common extremes regarding the manner in which Biblical material is presented to us in the English language – one anti-dramatic, and the other over-dramatic.
The one extreme concerns literal translations. A translation, if it is rendered overly literal, loses much of the originally intended dramatic effect, because the translated material is not natural language. A poorly written or literally translated book, more often than not, results in a loss of readership, or a lack of understanding while being read. This methodology is usually employed out of a high regard for the word of God, and/or possibly out of fear of changing the original text.
The other extreme, particularly in this day and age, is primarily created by the movie industry. Script writers often change Biblical content to the extent that the resulting films, although deemed highly dramatic, no longer give much (if any) of the original intended storyline or message.
There is no denying that many good readable translations of the Bible exist, as do some fairly accurate film portrayals. However, most written translations still tend to sound stilted. The Ultimate Drama series adheres t o certain translation principles (see appropriate tab) in its endeavor to bring out the drama while striving to maintain an accurate expression of the original message.
Of course, the Bible is meant to be informative, but it is also drama, and if translated as such into the receptor language, should be an enjoyable read. The hope is that The Ultimate Drama will prove to be just that, an enjoyable accurate read.