Hardcopy ALT Comments

Hardcopy ALT Comments

The following e-mails are commenting on the hardcopy versions of the Analytical-Literal Translation of the New Testament (ALT). The e-mailers' questions and comments are in black and enclosed in "greater than" and "lesser than" signs. My responses are in red.

>I GOT THE ALT PAPERBACK AND LOVE IT! …

Bro. Greg
6/20/01<

I'm glad you like it. You could do me a big favor, when the ALT is available on Amazon's or Barnes and Noble's, please consider writing a review of it. It will be probably be a couple more weeks or so before they pick it up. I'll probably make an announcement on my What's New? page when I do.

>Hi Gary.

Your website has been a great ministry to me in my walk with the Lord. Your writings on Bible versions have fundamentally help shape my view and understanding of the Holy Writ.<

I'm thankful I could be of help.

>I have been watching your work on the ALT over the last several years with great interest and yesterday, had the pleasure of obtaining my own hardcopy of that work. Needless to say, I will digesting it for sometime, but one thing has come to my attention I wanted to ask you about. I have noticed that your name is at the top of each page and the name of a given book is indicated only at the beginning of each book. Was that something that you intended?

In His Grace,
Bob
6/19/01<

My dad commented on that as well. And no, I did not want it that way. That is the way AuthorHouse formatted it. I would have preferred to have had the book, chapter, and verse starting the page at the top as most bibles do, but AuthorHouse couldn't do it that way.

But you will notice that I did include the name of the book at the beginning of each chapter (e.g. "Mark Chapter Two"). So you just have to look for the beginning of any chapter to see what book you're in.

Thanks again for the kind comments.

God bless,
Gary Z.

>Hi, Gary,

My ALT hardcover has arrived. Ah, how nice it is to read it on paper and not merely on-screen! What a tremendous version. It will be accompanying me to a church Bible study tonight, and, incidentally, I'm leading it! ...

Reese
6/20/01<

>Hi, Gary,

Man, the ALT was a hit at the Bible study. I used it on two occasions to give "literal readings" of things in the text so people could understand better what they really mean. It was quite eye-opening for most of them.

The passage was the first half of Matthew 13, and the biggest mind-blower for people was the fact that verse 21 doesn't really mean that the person's faith endures for a while, but speaks to the character of the person as being "temporary." Just "giving it a try for a while" and not approaching it from the perspective of being absolute truth and needing to commit to it. Quite like the post-moderns who try something to see if it works for them, oblivious to even the concept of "absolute truth." It got some discussion going and also answered any Arminian ideas of interpreting the verse.

Two of the "serious" students of the Bible had to take a look at it after the study was over, and were suggesting to me the name of another person, who is heading to seminary, who should have a copy. So, anyway, I'm just telling them where to get them, www.zeolla.org/christian.

You are right that the price sets them back a bit, but mainly because the two people in question were a volunteer missionary and a low-paid youth pastor. (Actually, he's a very highly paid youth pastor, it's just that he hasn't clued in yet that youth pastors generally need second jobs!) I think both of them are thinking, "how do I get one of these" nevertheless.

One of the things they marveled at was how it was an easy and compelling read even though it is so literal and has so many "analytical" notes. I think actually that's part of the attraction. The "analytical" component makes the literal translation more understandable because in a sense, all you have to do to get "another way of saying it" is to apply the analytical notes. It generally leaves a person less "puzzled" than a strictly literal translation.

Anyway, all this to say, it's a super translation, and everybody who is interested in good translations is really interested in the ALT. I think even the cover artwork makes people stop and say, "huh? What's that you've got there?"

God bless,
Reese
6/21/01<

Thanks for taking the time to relate this to me. It is encouraging. And you are right about the cover. I think AuthorHouse did a good job on it. The "logo" was my idea. I sent a *very* rough sketch of what I wanted to AuthorHouse. But the way they designed it really looks nice.

As for the price, I was hoping it would be a little lower. But that was totally out of my control. I already gave a copy to my pastor. I'll be taking copies to church Sunday to place on our books table. And the pastor asked me write up an announcement for it in the bulletin, and he said he'd make a comment about it from the pulpit. So I'm anxious to see what happens.

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